BERTRAND  SMITHS 
ACRES  C     '"OOKS 

140  PACIFIC      VENUE 
LONO  BKACH.  CALIF. 


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THE 

FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 
I  •«•  ■  •■»»  ■  •  •■• » 

A    ROMANCE 
BY 

ROY    ROLFE    GILSON 

AUTHOR  OP  "  IN  THE  MORNING  GLOW  " 
"  WHEN   LOVE    IS    YOUNG  "    ETC. 


NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS 

PUBLISHERS       •       MCMIV 


I 


Copyright,  1904,  by  Harpkr  &  Brothbrs. 

All  rights  reserved. 
Published  September,  1904. 


URL' 


TO 

MY  FATHER 


PART    I 

THE    TWO    SHADOWS 


THE  FLOWER  OF  YOUTH 


'Well- 


NCLE  JERRY,"  said  that  school- 
girl, Barbara,  shutting  my  Pick- 
wick in  my  hands,  robbing  my 
mouth  of  its  very  pipe,  and  seat- 
ing herself  upon  my  knee,  "did 
you  ever  have  any  adventures?" 
-"  said  I. 


"You  know  what  I  mean,"  my  niece 
went  on,  her  eyes  widening,  her  voice 
sinking  to  an  undertone — "I  mean  excit- 
ing things,  where  the  plot  thickens — 
fights,  or  love-affairs,  or  h-hair-breadth 
escapes!" 

"Well,"  said  I,  gathering  my  strewn 
wits,  seeking  some  story  in  that  eager  face, 
3 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

and  finding  none  but  the  mildest  of  mem- 
ories, "no,  my  dear." 

"Oh,  didn't  you,  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"N-no,"  I  repeated,  dropping  my  eyes, 
hers  were  so  half -reproachful.  "Why, 
yes,"  I  said,  brightening,  "I  did  have  a 
fight  once,  now  that  I  come  to  think  of  it. 
Butch  Duffy  was  the  rearingest,  tearingest 
boy  in  school,  and  one  day — " 

"Oh,  I  didn't  mean  that  kind,"  said 
Barbara.     "  I  meant  a  man-fight." 

"I'm  sorry,"  I  replied,  "but  I  never 
had  a  man-fight." 

"Weren't  there  any  wars  to  go  to, 
Uncle  Jerry?" 

"None  to  speak  of— that  is,  none 
around  where  I  lived." 

"  But  you  and  Aunt  Kate — " 

"Well,  I  shouldn't  call  them  wars,  my 

dear." 

For  a  moment  then  my  niece  looked 
puzzled,  she  is  such  a  sober  bit  of  thing. 

"You  didn't  let  me  finish,  Uncle  Jerry. 
I  was  going  to  say:  you  and  Aunt  Kate; 
4 


THE    FLOWER   OF    YOUTH 

didn't  you  ever  have  any — any  romantic 
— well,  times  together?" 

"  Oh  yes,  many  and  many  a  romantic 
time." 

We  were  on  firmer  ground,  my  niece 
and  I.  Deficient  I  may  have  been  in 
wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  guilty  even  of 
a  gross  negligence  in  those  martial  mat- 
ters, but  romantic  times  —  stars!  I  was 
something  of  a  man  then,  after  all. 

"What,  for  instance?"  asked  my  niece. 

"Do  I  imderstand,"  said  I,  "that  you 
ask  particulars?" 

"Um." 

She  nodded.  Her  lips  were  parted  as 
she  gazed  off  into  that  long  distance  which 
even  the  shortest  of  little  rooms  provides, 
her  eyes — her  blue  eyes — shining  with  what 
she  saw  there;  I  know  not  what,  for  I 
never  was  a  school-girl.  To  be  one,  judg- 
ing from  my  niece's  face,  is  something 
of  a  day-dream  long  drawn  out. 

"Go  on.  Uncle  Jerry." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "we — walked,  for  one 

5 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

thing,  I  remember,  Simdays,  in  Beecher's 
Lane." 
"Don't  stop.  Uncle  Jerry." 
"We  walked,"  said  I— 
"In  the  moonlight.  Uncle  Jerry?" 
"Oh  yes,  right  in  the — ^right  out  in  the 
moonUght,  you  know,  the  beautiful,  sil- 
very— " 

"Yes,  go  on,  Uncle  Jerry." 

"We  did.  First  we  went  on,  on  and 
on,  as  I  say— right  on  past  the  old  red 
bam,  and  on  past  the  dairy,  and  on  past 
the  mill,  till  we  came  to  the  meadow-bars." 

"And  then!"  whispered  my  niece,  and 
I  swear  she  was  holding  her  breath. 

"Why,  then,"  said  I,  "we  just  came 
back  again." 

"Oh,  Uncle  Jerry!" 

"Of  course,"  said  I;  "what  else—" 

"But  your  hated  rival,  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"My  what?" 

"Your  hated  rival,  you  know." 

"Ah!    Well,    you    see,    there    wasn't 

any." 

6 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Didn't  anybody  love  Aunt  Kate  but 
you?"  cried  my  niece,  aghast. 

"Oh  yes — yes,  yes,"  I  repHed,  hastily. 
"Your  aunt  Kate  had  a  great  many  ad- 
mirers. Many  and  many  a  yoimg  fellow 
would  have  been  glad  to  become  your 
imcle,  my  dear." 

"  But  didn't  they  challenge  you?" 

"How's  that?" 

"Challenge  you — to  fight  for  her,  you 
know?" 

"  N-no;  not  that  I  remember." 

Her  face  fell. 

"  I  think  they  were  a  pretty  poor  lot 
of  sticks,"  she  said. 

"  But  you  wouldn't  have  had  them  hurt 
your  uncle  Jerry,  would  you?"  I  asked, 
soothingly,  smoothing  her  brown  hair. 

"  No,  but  you  would  have  whipped  them, 
of  course,"  she  said. 

"Oh  yes — of  course,  I — " 

"In  Beecher's  Lane,  Uncle  Jerry!" 

"Sure." 

*'In  the  moonlight.  Uncle  Jerry!" 
7 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Dear  me,  yes!" 
"With  your  sleeves — " 
"My  sleeves!" 

"  R-roUed— r-roUed  to  your  elbows !  Oh, 
Uncle  Jerry,"  she  cried,  throwing  her 
arms  about  my  neck,  "how  I  wish  I'd 
been  there!" 

"  So  do  I.  So  do  I,  my  dear.  I  should 
very  much  like  to  have  been  there  my- 
self," I  repHed,  and  with  no  little  fire, 
though  borrowed,  I  confess,  from  that 
glowing  face.  Indeed,  there  was  a  mo- 
ment then,  with  her  eyes  upon  me,  that  I 
even  fancied  it  all  might  have  happened 
as  she  had  said. 
Barbara  sighed. 

"Then  nothing  ever  really  happened 
to  you,"  I  heard  her  saying— "  nothing 
novel-ish,  I  mean?" 

"No,"  I  said,  crestfallen  again.    What 
would  I  not  have  given,  say,  for  a  burglar 
btirgling  in  some  midnight  of  my  past? 
"No,  nothing  novel-ish,  my  dear." 
There  was  a  silence. 
8 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"I've  been  reading  the  loveliest  sto- 
ry," my  niece  confessed,  in  a  hushed 
voice. 

"So  I  imagined,"  I  replied. 

"All  about  a  hero,  Uncle  Jerry." 

"And  his  name?" 

She  pronotinced  it  reverently. 

"Bonny  Prince  Charley";  and  then 
again,  even  more  gravely  than  before, 
and  lingering  tenderly  upon  each  syllable 
— "Bon-ny  Prince  Char-ley." 

"A  charming  fellow,"  I  observed. 

"  Oh,  you  know  him,  then  ?" 

"I've  never  met  him,  but  I've  often 
heard  of  him,"  I  explained. 

"Uncle  Jerry,"  said  my  niece,  with 
fervor,  sitting  bolt  upright  upon  my  knee, 
"he  was  the  loveliest  man  I  ever  read 
about." 

"But  don't  you  think,"  said  I,  "that 
as  a  matter  of  fact  he  turned  out  to  be 
a — er — trifle — " 

"  Oh,  not  at  all,  Uncle  Jerry.  The  book 
says — " 

9 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

"Ah,  yes,  the  book!  To  be  sure.  I 
had  forgotten  the  book." 

"He  was  gallant  of  person,"  chanted 
my  niece,  quoting,  I  fear,  "with  a  smile 
so —  Oh,  Uncle  Jerry,  if  I  were  a  man,  do 
you  know  what  I'd  do  ?  I'd  go  and  be  a 
hero,  too.  I'd  go  and  do  things.  Why 
didn't  you?" 

"Go  and  do  things?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "I  was  always  so  busy, 
you  see,  just  pottering  around  making  a 
living  that  I — " 

"Heroes  are  awfully  busy,  too,"  said 
Barbara,  "but  somehow  they  find  the 
time." 

"I  know,"  said  I;  "but  you  don't  un- 
derstand; you  don't  grasp  the  situation. 
Don't  you  see — ^has  it  never  occurred  to 
you  that  if  we  were  all  heroes,  every  man 
Jack  of  us,  it  wouldn't  be  wonderful  at  all 
to  be  a  hero,  my  dear?" 

"I  never  thought  of  that,"  said  Bar- 
bara. 

-   10 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Of  course  you  didn't,"  I  replied,  with 
all  the  reproach  I  could  fairly  htirl  at  her, 
without,  of  course,  actually  hurting  that 
tender  heart.  "  Remember,  hereafter,  that 
some  of  us  have  to  not  be  heroes  in  order 
that  heroes  may — be  heroes,  my  dear." 

The  climax  lay  less  in  the  words  I  chose 
than  in  the  flourish  of  my  voice  and  hand. 

"I  see,"  said  Barbara,  "but  I'd— I'd  let 
the  other  fellows  not  be  the  heroes,  then." 

My  sword  was  hers. 

"That's  very  brave  of  you,  my  dear," 
I  said.  "As  for  myself,  you  see,  I  have 
always — always  from  the  first — ^been  an 
ordinary  man." 

"  Dear  Uncle  Jerry,"  she  said,  impulsive- 
ly, taking  my  face  in  her  soft  little  hands. 
"  Do  you  know,  you  must  have  been  awful- 
ly good-looking  once.  You  have  regular 
apple  cheeks.  Uncle  Jerry." 

"Tut!    Apple  nothing!" 

"Roimd  and  ruddy,"  said  my  niece, 
"  and  the  loveliest,  kindest  old  mouth  that 
ever — " 

II 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Look  here!     I  won't  be  coddled." 

"Oh,  Uncle  Jerry,  you're  such  a  nice, 
uncle-y  goodman,"  she  said,  and  with  a 
laugh,  and  roundly  kissing  me,  bounced 
suddenly  to  the  floor  again,  where  her 
book  lay  open  on  the  hearth-rug. 

"  Tut!"  said  I,  and,  ruffled,  regained  my 
cold,  black  pipe. 

"  Uncle  Jerry,"  said  my  niece,  softly, 
finding  her  place  in  that  wondrous  story, 
"you  couldn't  look  fierce  if  you  tried." 

"Humpf!"  I  retorted.  "If  you  were 
my  child,  I'd—" 

"Why,  Uncle  Jerry,"  asserted  that  im- 
pudent young  miss  of  teens,  thrusting  out 
at  me  the  red  tip  of  her  saucy  tongue,  but 
so  roguishly,  so  Barbara-ly,  I  had  to 
smile. 

"Uncle  Jerry,  you  wouldn't  scare  a 
r-rabbit!" — and  was  off  with  Charley. 


II 


D 


EAR  Barbara.  .  .  .  She  )iad  put 
me  in  mind,  somehow,  of  a  lit- 
tle boy  I  had  known  once,  who 
■J"yi  jMi  was  to  grow  up  and  be  a  hero, 
>flfc'  with  men  to  love  him  living,  and 
girls,  I  suppose,  to  love  him  dead, 
even  as  Charley.  He  was  a  bare-legged 
little  boy  with  wriggly  toes,  and  his  tou- 
seled  hair  stuck  up  through  a  hole  in  the 
top  of  a  straw  hat  with  a  brim  so  tattered 
there  were  sprinkles  of  sun  on  his  tanned 
face.  He  was  not  a  clean  little  boy — ' '  For 
how  can  you,  mother,  when  the  frogs  stay 
where  it's  all  muddy  and  won't  come  out 
at  all?"  He  was  a  real,  what  you  might 
call  spattered  little  boy,  and  no  matter 
how  hard  she  sewed  the  buttons  on,  I 
»  13 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

remember—"  Why,  mother,  they  just  came 
right  apart!"  he  said. 

But  he  was  to  be  a  hero.  He  knew  it 
himself,  for  he  had  spelled  his  way  through 
the  Third  Reader  and  knew  how  heroes 
came  about,  starting  as  Httle  boys,  every 
mother's  son  of  them— starting  in  log- 
cabins,  even,  and  patches  on  their  panties, 
and  ending,  all  dressed  up,  in  the  White 
House,  or  on  prancing  horses,  «and  with 
swords  waving  in  their  hands. 

Was  it  not  all  written  down  for  Httle 
boys,  how  you  could  be  a  hero  if  you 
tried?  Then  they  would  put  you  in  the 
history  of  the  United  States,  with  all  your 
dates,  and  even  your  middle  name,  and 
what  poor  but  honest  parents  you  were 
the  son  of — and  where. 

Why,  if  that  boy  sat  down  anywhere— 
on  a  log,  say,  in  the  back  lot,  or  out  in 
the  hammock,  or  where  there  were  story- 
books—he could  think  of  the  very  hero 
he  was  going  to  be,  and  I  have  even  known 
him  to  see  it  all  so  plainly  in  the  air  he 
14 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

wouldjiimp  to  his  bare  feet,  crying,"  Charge, 
men!"  when  not  another  soul  was  there. 

And  another  reason  why  he  knew  he 
would  be  a  hero  was  because  he  was  smart- 
er than  other  little  boys — except  in  'rith- 
metic,  which  did  not  count,  for  there 
wasn't  a  book  anywhere  in  the  whole 
house  about  a  hero  who  was  smart  in 
'rithmetic. 

But  joggerfy  and  hist'ry! 

Of  course,  a  hero  would  have  to  be  good 
in  joggerfy,  so  as  to  know  where  the 
quickest  ways  were  to  get  anywhere  be- 
fore the  enemy  could  (get  anywhere),  and 
hist'ry,  so  as  to  know  what  the  other 
heroes  did — and  how. 

Now  Aunty  Sniffin  lived  just  around  the 
comer  by  the  Methodist  church,  and  if 
he  happened  to  be  there  when  she  was 
making  things — cookies  or  anything  like 
that — so  much  the  better.  Climbing  his 
back  fence,  the  little  boy  could  look  across 
lots  to  Aunty  Sniffin' s  and  tell  whether 
she  was  or  not,  and  if  she  was,  he  could 
15 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

just  be  going  by — ^which  was  usually  Sat- 
urday in  the  morning,  and,  gee !  no  school. 

So  it  happened,  I  remember,  that  he 
told  her  once,  with  his  mouth  full  of  what- 
ever it  was  that  day,  all  about  the  partic- 
ular hero  he  was  going  to  be,  and  she 
said: 

"My,'  my,  my!" 

And  he  said : 

"  Then  I'll  have  you  come  and  live  with 
us.  Aunty  Sniffin,  in  the  White  House, 
and  make  all  my  cookies ;  and  you  can  sell 
what's  left  over  to  the  Senators  if  you 
want  to.  I  sha'n't  care,  just  so  you  keep 
a-plenty  in  the  crock." 

Aunty  Sniffin  laughed  and  said,  "All 
right,"  it  was  very  kind,  and  she  would, 
and  how  soon  should  she  pack  up? 

Then  the  Httle  boy  thought  a  moment, 
and  he  said: 

"Well,  in  about  twenty-eight  years,  I 

think.  Aunty  Sniffin,  'cause  I'm  seven  now 

and  father  says  you  have  to  be  thirty-five. 

They  won't  be  ready  for  me  awhile  yet; 

i6 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

and,  besides,  I'll  have  a  good.many  things 
to  'tend  to  first,  I  s'pose." 

And  Aunty  Sniffin  said — for  she  was  a 
fine,  old,  soft-cheeked  lady,  and  always 
willing  to  do  anything  for  the  boy  she 
never  had: 

"All  right,  darling;  I'll  just  wait  for 
you." 

And  that  was  forty-one  years  ago! 

Forty-one  years,  my  Barbara,  since  the 
little  boy  told  Aunty  Sniffin — forty-one 
years  last  spring  .  ,  .  spring,  I  think  it  was, 
when  he  told  her  .  .  .  spring. 


Ill 


O,  she  could  not  wait  for  him, 
he  was  so  long  about  it,  and,  be- 
sides, soon  afterward  he  moved 
away  from  where  Aimty  Sniffin 
lived  to  another  town. 

It  was  a  long  journey,  with 
cakes  and  surrup  in  the  middle  of  it,  and 
that  thick,  sweet,  golden  middle  is  the 
only  part  that  he  remembers  now.  It  is 
like  this  to  him : 

First,  there  is  nothing— black,  blank 
nothing;  then,  suddenly,  it  is  a  grayish, 
dawny,  spooky  kind  of  light  (though  he 
does  not  remember  being  waked  or  dress- 
ed) and  he  is  sitting  at  a  table  with  buck- 
wheat-cakes right  there  in  front  of  him,  a 
whole  brown  pile  of  them,  hot  and  smok- 
ing, on  a  plate;  while  over  a  wide  and 
i8 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

smile-y  kind  of  lip  of  something  round 
and  fat,  a  tide  of  sumip — not  syrup,  sur- 
rup — s-u-r,  sur,  r-u-p,  rup,  surrup — is 
pouring  like  Niagara  but  without  its  roar, 
and  falling  in  a  sparkling  puddle  on  the 
cakes.  Slowly,  then,  it  spreads  to  a  molt- 
en lake,  spilling,  dripping  over  the  crusty 
buckwheat  edges  to  the  blue  china — and 
all  the  while  sits  that  little  boy,  wishing, 
hoping,  praying  that  it  may  not  stop. 

But  it  did  stop.  There  was  a  kind  of 
click  and  the  flood  ceased,  and  that  broad, 
that  shiny,  lippy  thing  withdrew,  followed 
cautiously  by  that  little  boy's  bright  eyes, 
lest  they  lose  track  of  it  in  the  gloom ;  and 
there  in  the  distant  centre  of  the  table  it 
squatted  down  with  one  big,  golden  drop 
which  it  had  not  licked,  hanging  pendant 
like  a  jewel  from  its  gleaming  mouth,  and 
about  to  fall,  alas!  and  be  lost  forever. 
And  there  it  sat,  that  fat,  round-bellied 
jug,  and  smiled  from  ear  to  ear  com- 
placently. 

The  little  boy  kept  one  eye  upon  it  as 
19 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

he  ate,  lest  suddenly  it  up  and  run,  but  it 
stayed  right  there  a-squat,  and  with  never 
a  yawn  from  its  jewelled  lips  till,  not  long 
after,  he  passed  his  plate  again. 

Those  were  the  griddle  days  when  cakes 
were  cakes !  They  were  never  burned  and 
never  doughy,  or — what  do  they  call  it  ? — 
sad;  no,  they  were  never  sad,  to  eat  or 
remember.  He  recalls  them  all,  that  lit- 
tle boy  does,  all  that  he  ever  ate,  with 
impartial  gratitude— all,  that  is,  that  he 
ever  ate  as  a  Httle  boy,  for  there  are  no 
cakes  like  them  any  more.  There  was  a 
certain  crustiness  about  their  edges  then, 
a  certain  grace  about  their  middles,  so  that 
while  six  in  those  days  were  a  bagatelle, 
four  of  these  modem  cakes  are  quite  a 
plenty. 

Still,  even  that  were  easy  to  be  borne 
were  it  not  for  another  and  a  sadder  loss. 
He  did  not  know  it  then,  that  little  boy 
eating  those  cakes  in  that  wintry  dawn 
with  the  distant  sound  of  frying  in  his 
ears;  he  did  not  dream  that  he  devoured 
20 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

there  all  that  was  left  of  that  golden  flood 
— the  last  sweet,  sparkling  dregs  of  that 
Falstaffian  jug — ay,  worse  than  that ! — the 
very  last  of  that  magic  sumip  ever  made, 
or  barrelled,  or  sold,  or  poured  on  cakes ! 

He  ate  the  last! 

For  though  he  was  to  travel  far  and 
wide — once  to  New  York,  that  is,  on 
business,  and  twice  to  Boston  to  see  his 
aunt;  though  he  was  to  eat  his  cakes  on 
many  a  plate  and  winter's  morning  in  the 
years  to  come  (in  years  that  have  inter- 
vened!) he  was  nev-er,  nev-er  to  find  its 
like  again.  Surrups  there  have  been,  sur- 
rups  there  are  to-day,  surrups  there  will 
be  as  long  as  there  are  jugs  and  cakes  and 
little  boys — ^but  not  like  that!  Not  half 
so  golden-y,  not  half  so  thick  and  golden-y, 
Barbara,  not  half  so  heavenly-molassesey 
as  the  surrup  in  that  never-to-be-forgotten 
buckwheat  middle  of  a  long  journey,  the 
rest  of  which  is  as  black  and  void  as  a 
night  without  a  star. 

Maple  ? 

21 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

Fudge!  Fiddlesticks!  It  was  nothing 
like  maple — not  even  the  Vermont. 

Sugar  ? 

Bah! 

Golden  Drip? 

Nonsense!  Just  because  it  was  gold- 
en-y! 

Why  do  you  doubt  him?  Was  he  not 
there  ?  Did  he  not  roll  it  like  nectar  upon 
the  very  tongue  that  moistens  at  its  mem- 
ory now?  Has  he  not  hunted  for  one 
drop  more  of  it — one,  only  one,  in  Heaven's 
name! — ^but  one  drop  more  of  that  magic 
surrup  of  his  youth  ?  Has  he  not  begged 
them,  cooks  and  waiters  and  grocers  all? 
Has  he  not  told  them  just  how  it  tasted, 
just  how  it  looked  ?  Has  he  not  ransacked 
the  whole  green  waving  world  of  the 
Southern  cane? 

Ah,  had  he  only  known  what  he  was 
eating  there,  that  little  boy !  Had  he  but 
known  that  the  town  he  was  bound  for 
would  have  no  drop  of  that  precious  juice 
in  any  of  its  jugs  or  joys,  he  would  have 

22 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

spread  more  thinly  and  munched  more 
slowly,  and  made  it  last. 

But  there  he  sat — ^where,  he  knows  not 
— ^perhaps  at  some  uncle's  where  they 
spent  the  night,  half-way.  There  is  a 
woman  there,  now  that  he  looks  more 
closely,  or  a  something  like  one,  shadowy, 
standing  by  his  side  with  the  pancake- 
turner  in  her  hand,  but  felt  rather  than 
seen;  and  there  is  a  littler  shadow,  prob- 
ably some  forgotten  cousin,  probably  eat- 
ing by  his  side. 

More  he  knows  not,  for  all  the  silvery 
light  of  that  winter's  morning  falls  like  a 
halo  on  that  surrup-jug. 

Then  all  is  dark  again. 


IV 


HEN  it  is  light  once  more,  lo! 
there  is  the  Httle  boy,  but  taller 
by  an  inch  or   two,   living,   as 
if  he   had  Hved   there  always, 
in  that  town  beyond  the    jug. 
How  long    he    has   been  there 
for   the   life  of  him  he  cannot  tell  you 
now,  nor   how   he    got    there,    nor  how 
they    unpacked    the    furniture    and    set 
it  up  again  in  that  strange  house.  No. 
12  Chaffinch  Street.     Yet  it  must  have 
been  an  exciting  day  for  him  when  for 
the  first  time  he  ran  up  those  three  gray 
steps  to  the  ample  porch,  which  he  cannot 
remember  climbing  first  at  all ;  when  he  first 
crossed  the  threshold  of  that  white  door, 
which  it  seems  now  to  him,  he  tells  me, 
that  he  had  always  entered,  turning  its 
24 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH' 

mottled,  marble-y  knob;  when  he  went 
inside  to  discover,  room  by  room,  up-statrs 
and  down,  that  new-old  little  house  which 
was  to  be  the  scene  of  so  many  of  his 
years. 

Surely  he  must  have  noticed  the  honey- 
suckle running  wild  upon  the  porch,  for  it 
was  spring.  Did  everything  happen  in 
spring  then,  that  it  should  be  always 
that  flowery  season  whenever  he  sees  him- 
self as  a  little  boy?  Well,  say  it  was 
spring;  for  remember,  we  can  only  im- 
agine that  first  day  in  Chaffinch  Street, 
since  he  does  not  recall  a  golden  moment 
of  it  himself.  Call  it  spring.  Then  the 
honeysuckle  must  have  been  green  and 
the  lilacs  at  the  bay-window  must  have 
been  blooming.  But  suppose  they  were, 
and  no  matter  how  sweet  the  little  winds 
were  blowing  from  them,  doubtless  he 
scarcely  would  have  noted  them  till  he 
had  finished  with  the  house  itself,  parlor 
to  kitchen,  garret  to  cellar,  and  had  come 
outside  again.  Or  would  he  have  done 
25 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

the  outside  first,  do  you  think,  my  Bar- 
bara? Pshaw!  you  cannot  tell — ^you  are 
not  a  boy ;  and  he  cannot  tell — he  is  not 
a  boy  any  longer. 

We  have  called  it  spring,  and  the  honey- 
suckle green  and  the  Hlacs  Hlac.  Let  us 
say  then,  too,  that  he  ran  first  through  the 
odd  little  house,  a  gray-blue  Httle  house, 
it  was,  with  white  trimmings.  Was  the 
house  empty  that  first  time,  or  was  the 
furniture  standing  about  mumpish -ly, 
swathed  in  gunny-sack,  or  had  they  gone 
before  and  settled  it  ere  the  Httle  boy 
came  to  that  town  beyond  the  jug  ?  Let 
us  say  they  had  settled  it — ^we  said  it  was 
spring.  Yes,  they  had  fairly  settled  it — 
— and  it  is  easier  to  say  it  so.  They  had 
fairly  put  it  in  its  new  places,  and  the 
white  curtains  were  hanging  at  the  front 
windows,  which  began  at  the  very  floor 
and  grew  tall  and  opened  like  doors  on 
the  porch,  to  let  little  boys  out  and  little 
springs  in. 

And  the  carpets  were  down  and  the  pict- 
26 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

tires  were  up — the  dark  pictures,  the  "  Sign- 
ing of  the  Declaration,"  and  the  "  Washing- 
ton Crossing  the  Delaware,"  and  the 
"Henry  Clay  in  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate," all  hung  in  the  long,  prim  little  par- 
lor where  the  chairs  were  plush  and  red. 
And  in  the  dining-room,  with  its  windows 
looking  out  upon  a  bit  of  garden,  were  the 
fruit  pictures  —  oranges,  apples,  grapes, 
and  plimis  in  luscious  piles  that  made 
his  tongue  to  swim.  Not  then,  of  course, 
not  that  first  day,  for  he  was  noticing  the 
bully  place  to  keep  his  shinny-stick  when 
he  should  come  in  hot  from  play;  too 
much  hurried  he  was,  with  rushing,  clat- 
tering up  the  stairs  to  that  little  room 
they  said  was  his,  and  noting  from  its 
window  the  pear-tree's  nigher  limbs.  And 
why?  Aha!  my  Barbara,  you  are  but  a 
girl  and  would  never  guess.  Sh!  Now 
if  you,  say,  were  a  boy — and  they  kept 
you  in  o'  nights — when  the  other  boys 
were — m'm — looking,  as  it  were,  at  melon- 
patches — by  moonlight — ^would  not  you 
27 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

be  grateful  for  a  pear-tree's  nigher  limbs 
close  to  your  prison  window-sill?  Tut! 
what  were  we  saying? 

He  must  have  seen  those  things.  He 
must  have  seen,  for  instance,  those  five 
enchanted  windows  in  the  vines  where 
sparrows  slept — that  little  bay,  I  mean, 
through  which  the  morning  came  all  gold- 
en and  tinged  with  leaves.  Down-stairs 
that  was,  in  the  left-hand  comer  as  you 
faced  Chaffinch  Street,  in  a  Httle  room  of 
pipes  and  books  and  memories,  where  the 
chairs  were  gardens  of  great  red  pome- 
granate blooms. 

Then  he  ran  out  -  of  -  doors.  We  know 
he  did,  though  he  does  not  remember. 
He  sprang  out-of-doors  to  the  level  turf, 
and  squinted  an  eye  at  the  pear-tree  from 
below.  There,  too,  was  a  nigher  limb  just 
low  enough  for  the  hands  of  a  leaping  boy. 

Then  he  tried  the  garden  and  wondered 

would  they  make  him  dig  or  would  he  dig 

there  only  when  he  pleased  and  played,  a 

different  matter.     Then   he   smelled   the 

28 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

lilacs!  Ah,  yes,  then  he  would  have  smelled 
them — the  lilac  lilacs  by  the  bay-window 
and  the  white  lilacs  by  the  fence,  and 
would  have  seen  that  the  fence  was  low 
enough  for  a  boy  to  vault  without  going 
through  the  gate.  Then,  too,  for  the  first 
time,  doubtless,  he  clapped  his  eyes  upon 
that  sandy,  pebbly  spot  under  the  water- 
spout at  the  comer  of  the  porch  —  his 
California  where  he  washed  for  gold. 

Odd,  is  it  not  ? — odd  that  he  should  ever 
forget  that  beginning  there,  which  must 
to  his  boyish  eyes  have  been  so  wonderful, 
but  which,  now  looking  backward,  does 
not  seem  to  have  ever  been.  Strange, 
that  after  the  surrup-jug  and  the  dark- 
ness which  followed  but  could  not  obscure 
its  sheen,  he  is  at  once  that  school-boy, 
taller  by  an  inch  or  Wo,  as  though  noth- 
ing— no  first,  sweet  breath  of  Hlacs  even 
— had  intervened! 


V 


ALLER,  yes,  but  still  a  little  boy, 
as  he  now  sees  himself  as  he  was 
then,  for  even  as  it  is  always 
spring  there  when  he  turns  and 
looks  backward  as  far  as  he  can 
see,  so  also  the  boy  he  sees  there 
is  a  little  boy,  even  when  he  has  left 
the  surrup-jug  far  behind  him  and  has 
lived  for  a  long  time  in  Chaffinch  Street. 
Yet  he  was  not  so  little  as  he  then 
saw  himself  —  or  was  it  the  hero  he 
saw  there  struggling  within  his  meagre 
frame  ? 

It  was  the  hero. 

He  did  not  know  himself  from  a  major- 
general.     He  was  heard  to  tell  Sherman — 
Tecumseh! — to   bring  up   the  rear.     He 
was  seen  on  the  same  afternoon — for  he 
30 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

could  twist  time  by  the  tail — at  York- 
town  retiiming  a  proffered  sword. 

Yet  that  was  something  which  Chaf- 
finch Street  never  could  be  made  to  under- 
stand. If  he  said  "Bread!"  as  Caesar  or 
Wellington  or  Grant  would  have  said  it, 
they  thought  him  short  with  them.  Ay, 
and  chided,  little  dreaming  that  they 
balked  a  field-marshal  at  his  frugal  meal. 

If  a  fierce  light  shone  in  his  eyes,  if  he 
speared  the  pickles,  if  he  charged  the  beef- 
steak or  outflanked  the  pie,  they  talked  of 
manners — those  poor  though  honest  par- 
ents whose  names  he  would  link  with  his, 
and  his  dates,  in  United  States  history. 

If  he  rose  from  the  table  and  strode 
away — 

"My,  what  a  noise  he  makes!"  they 
would  cry,  peevishly. 

If  they  had  worn  cavalry-boots,  if  for 
them  a  charger  had  waited,  champing  its 
bit,  at  the  door — tut !  what  did  they  know 
of  the  army,  they  who  could  not  distin- 
guish in  the  smart  clatter  of  his  heels  upon 

31 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

the  floor  the  martial  tread  of  a  major- 
general!  He  could  not  wear  the  stars  of 
his  rank,  it  is  true,  but  he  could  make 
the  noise  of  it,  and  he  could  cultivate  the 
sternness  of  its  eyes  and  the  pride  and 
bravery  of  its  bearing. 

It  would  have  warmed  your  romantic 
soul,  sweet  Barbara,  if  you  could  have  seen 
him  then,  that  boy  who  was  beginning  al- 
ready to  be  a  hero  like  the  one  you  read 
of  on  the  rug.  To  have  been  in  his  storm- 
ing-parties,  his  forlorn  hopes,  would  have 
brought  the  blood  to  your  cheeks  and  the 
fire  to  your  eyes. 

There  was  that  little  affair  of — Bala- 
klava,  I  think  it  was — or  Pickett  at  Gettys- 
burg, I've  forgotten  which  he  said,  but  it 
does  not  matter.  It  was  in  the  back  yard 
anyhow,  and  it  was  just  before  the  charge. 

"Cookie,"  said  he,  "are  you  ready?" 

"Ay,  ay,  sir,"  Cookie  said,  tightening 
his  belt. 

"We're  not  in  a  boat,  Cookie,"  said  the 
hero. 

32 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"I  mean,  'Yes,  sir.'" 

"You  mean,  'Ready  to  the  death!'" 

"Ready  to  the  death!"  said  Cookie, 
fumbling  at  his  belt. 

"Cookie,  my  lad,"  said  the  hero — and 
there  was  an  awful  calmness  in  his  face 
as  he  laid  his  hand  on  Cookie's  shoulder- 
strap — "be  a  soldier.  Cookie." 

Said  Cookie : 

"You  bet  I  will!"  and  then,  more  ra- 
diantly, remembering — "Ready  to  the 
death!"  and  fairly  teetered  for  the  charge. 

But  the  hero  held  him  with  his  brood- 
ing eye. 

"  Cookie,"  he  said,  as  they  waited  on  the 
heights  for  the  bugle's  blowing,  "Cook- 
ie, we  may  never  see  each  other  again." 

Cookie  started. 

"  If  you  are  spared  and  I  am  taken, 
Cookie,  I  want  you  to  tell  my  mother 
how  I  died." 

Cookie  paled. 

"R-ready  to  the  death!"  he  chattered, 
but  his  eyes  were  wild. 
33 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"And  if  I  am  spared,"  said  the  hero, 
without  a  tremor  in  his  voice,  "and  you, 
Cookie,  should  be  the  bloody  one — " 

Cookie  sniffled  —  sniffled,  the  coward! 
like  a  baby,  and  with  one  horrid  stare  at 
the  valley  of  death  below  them,  turned 
and  fled,  bellowing,  through  the  clover; 
and  stopped  not,  nor  looked  once  over  his 
epaulets  till  safe  by  his  mother's  door. 

"Cowardy,  cowardy,  cowardy-custard !" 
roared  the  hero,  following  hotly  on  the 
deserter's  track.  "Come  back,  you,  Cow- 
ardy-Cookie,  Cow-Cookie,  Cow-Cookie!" 

But  Cookie's  mother,  ampler  to  the  eye 
and  far  more  dreadful  than  many  gims, 
sheltered  her  son.    The  hero  paused. 

Attack  a  woman  ? 

Never ! 

A  hero's  place  is  fighting  men. 

"Forward!"  the  bugles  blew,  and  he 
charged — alone . 


VI 


HERE  is  always  that  time  when 
a  boy  is  to  be  a  general,  just  as 
his  dream  at  another  is  to  sit  in 
a  greasy  cab  and  run  a  choo-choo 
train ;  and  again  to  sail  the  deep 
blue  sea — a  long  dream  that  is 
apt  to  be;  and  yet  again  to  drive  a  de- 
livery-wagon like  other  free  boys  who  do 
not  have  to  stay  pent  up  in  yards,  but 
rattle  everywhere  about  the  town,  chir- 
ruping to  horses — perhaps  the  baker's  boy, 
dipping,  it  may  be,  naughtily  into  cookie- 
bags  behind  the  seat,  and  knocking  at 
kitchen  doors  with  fat  mince-pies. 

That  is  the  age  of  assorted  heroes  when 

you  put  your  hand  into  the  bag  and  draw 

out  a  new  one  every  morning,  but  there 

comes  a  time  when  each  boy  chooses  for 

35 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

himself  the  sort  of  hero  he  is  really  and 
truly  always  going  to  be.  So  it  happened 
that  in  the  town  beyond  the  jug,  to  the 
boy  who  told  Aunty  Sniffin,  to  the  one 
whose  champing  charger  waited  at  the 
door,  there  came  a  vision  so  new  and 
wondrous  in  his  sight,  the  sword  dropped 
from  his  fingers,  falHng  so  softly  it  was 
never  missed,  and  still  lies  rusting  where 
it  fell. 

Across  the  way  lay  a  great  yard,  streets 
on  every  side  of  it — a  mighty  square  of 
green  velvet  spotted  with  gold  between  the 
trees.  There  were  oaks  there  and  beeches, 
elms  and  evergreens,  a  quiet  forest  in- 
habited by  birds  and  squirrels,  and  one 
lone  man  in  cordiiroys  raking  leaves. 
Often  the  boy  watched  him  through  the 
high  iron  fence,  but  the  man  kept  raking 
— swish!  swish! — ^never  once  looking  up, 
never  once  smiling,  till  raking  farther  and 
farther  backward  from  the  bars  with  those 
cheeks  between,  he  grew  smaller  and  quiet- 
er in  the  distance  and  disappeared  among 
36 


THE    FLOWER   OF   YOUTH 

the  trees.  Just  to  look  at  him  ever  rak- 
ing there — swish !  swish ! — you  would  have 
thought  him  dimib;  but  a  boy  named 
Bugg  —  for  short,  called  Tumble-bug  — 
once  climbed  the  fence,  and  the  man 
said, 

"Hi!" 

And  young  Bugg  jumped;  so  it  was 
known  that  the  man  could  speak. 

In  the  simny  centre  of  the  square  was 
a  huge  house,  almost  a  palace,  though  not 
so  bright.  It  was  built  of  a  dark-brown, 
prison-colored  stone,  with  a  high,  square 
tower  tipped  by  a  gilded  vane,  and  there 
must  have  been  a  hundred  windows, 
though  never  a  face  looked  out  of  one. 
Many  a  time,  on  his  school-way,  the  boy, 
passing  that  great  gate,  gazed  up  the 
gravelled  driveway,  but  all  was  silent  at 
the  other  end,  and  grim.  The  lace  cur- 
tains hung  motionless  at  the  tall  windows ; 
beyond  them,  always,  all -seemed  black  as 
night,  even  in  clearest  day,  so  that  he 
wondered  what  they  did  within  there 
37 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

who  kept   so   still  —  whether  in  hiding, 
whether  dead. 

Once,  passing  alone  in  a  windy  gloam- 
ing, when  there  was  not  a  glimmer  of 
light  in  all  that  house  or  square,  he  heard 
a— scream !  and  ran.  But  across  the  street 
where  the  Httle  houses  were,  the  little 
bright  ones  with  beaming  eyes,  all  in  a 
row,  he  breathed  again. 

There  was  his  own,  with  a  green  lamp 
shining  through  the  five  enchanted  win- 
dows in  the  vines,  and  a  yellow  lamp  here 
and  a  yellow  lamp  there,  so  that  only  to 
pass  it,  as  a  stranger  passing  in  the  night, 
you  would  have  known  just  where  to 
rtm.  And  the  door  would  have  yielded 
to  the  sUghtest  pressure  of  your  out- 
stretched fingers,  it  had  grown  so  used 
to  it,  first  swinging  this  way  and  then 
swinging  that  for   a  school-boy  all  day 

long. 

Often   he   wondered   if   those   massive 
doors  across  the  way  could  open — surely 
no  boy  could  wield  them,  if  they  did;  and 
38 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

then  again,  who  was  it  made  their  brasses 
shine  ? 

If  a  knocker  hangs  upon  a  mighty  door 
and  is  all  of  brass,  and  is  never  dingy,  but 
shines  like  gold,  day  after  day,  month 
after  month,  even  in  cold  and  wet;  and  if 
a  boy  watches,  watches,  and  no  one,  not 
even  a  maid  or  a  raker-man,  goes  near  to 
polish  it — what  then?  Do  they  do  it  by 
night?  And  who  are  theyf  Do  ghosts, 
or  witches — or  skellingtons ! — polish  brass  ? 
Or  are  there  housemaids  so  hideous  to 
look  upon  that  they  work  by  dark?  Or 
do  they  keep  Things  tied  in  the  middle  of 
big  houses,  and  only  let  them  out  o' 
nights?  And  do  the  Things — polish — the 
brass? 

That  was  what  the  boy  wondered,  one 
day  in  spring,  when  he  wandered,  won- 
dering, aroimd  the  square.  He  had  start- 
ed at  the  driveway  gate.  He  had  kept 
to  the  right  and  close  to  the  fence,  stop- 
ping a  moment  now  and  a  moment  then 
to  peer  through  the  iron  bars.  Aside  from 
39 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

the  flutter  of  leaf  or  wing,  all  was  silent  in 
the  siin— the  great,  brown  house  silentest 
of  all.     Side  and  rear,  its  windows  stared 
at  him  through  the  trees,  but  not  a  cur- 
tain trembled.     There  was  not  a  sign  of 
expression   in   those    great,    cold,    glassy 
eyes.     Not  the  faintest  haze  rose  from  the 
tall  chimneys  where  the  ivy  clung.     Be- 
hind the  house  the  stables,  too,  were  sleep- 
ing with  lids  shut  tight;  not  a  single  line 
for  a  shred  of  wash-day  rag  to  hang  upon; 
not  a  single  milk-pan  drying  and  shining 
by  the  kitchen  door-way  in  the  sun,  and 
nowhere  a  Hving  soul,  human  or  dog  or 
purring  pussy-cat— all  dead  and  silent  as 
the  tomb. 

Yet  what  was  that  ? 
Suddenly,  as  he  neared  the  gate  again, 
he  heard   a  soimd  coming  from— some- 
where—yes— no— yes,    wheels!       Wheels 
and  hoofs  crunching  the  distant  gravel! 
They  were  coming  out! 
Running,    breathless,    he   reached    the 
gate  in  time.     Out  of  it— coming  appar- 
40 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

ently  from  the  very  skies  as  at  the  waving 
of  some  genie's  wand — dashed  coal-black 
shining  steeds,  gnashing  their  bits,  their 
harness  jingling  with  silver  chains,  their 
hoofs  rattling  like  castanets  on  the  stone 
pavement,  and  behind  them,  perched  high 
as  on  a  mantel-shelf,  two  ornaments  in 
blue  and  white,  porcelain  or  wood  for 
aught  that  eyes  could  see,  and  stiff  and 
motionless  as  the  gilded  ones  on  circus- 
wagons  where  the  brass  bands  play.  But, 
ah !  behind  them  and  below  in  that  great, 
black,  rocking  -  cradle  slimg  on  wheels, 
leaning  back  grandly  among  the  purple 
cushions,  a  man,  gray,  white- vested,  his 
set  face  looking  straight  before  him,  his 
gloved  hands  toying  with  a  gold-tipped 
cane ;  and  by  his  side  a  lady  glistening  in 
silk  and  lace,  her  cheeks  like  cream  and 
rose-leaves — and  wonderful  for  kisses  if 
one  dared! 

Not  till  the  carriage  in  one  wondrous 
moment  had  almost  passed  him,  standing 
wide-eyed,    wide-mouthed    there   by   the 
41 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

gate,  did  he  see  that  vision  on  the  little 
seat— the  Httle  seat  opposite— probably 
a  hassock,  he  thought  afterward  to  him- 
self, for  he,  too,  had  ridden  in  carriages- 
livery  ones,  surreys  mostly,  on  bright  Sun- 
days, when  they  all  went  riding,  the  whole 
family,  and  made  room  in  front  for  a  has- 
sock with  a  Httle  boy. 

There  she  sat  on  the  little  seat  opposite 
—the  most  beautiful  creature  he  had  ever 
seen.  She  was  like  a  fairy,  oh,  my  Bar- 
bara, and  all  in  white,  and  with  silken 
curls  falling  from  her  broad  -  brimmed, 
feathered  hat  to  her  shoulders,  and  lace 
faUing  from  her  shoulders  to  her  lap.  And 
there  she  sat  with  her  gloved  httle  hands 
folded,  and  her  face  all  pensive  and  cream, 
and  rose-leaves  like  her  mother's  face, 
and  her  eyes  all  starry  bright— and  that 
was  all;  for  like  a  fairy  she  had  come  and 
like  a  fairy  she  was  gone  again. 

She  had  not  seen  him  standing  by  the 
gate.     He  stood  there  even  after  she  had 
disappeared  in   the  farthest  distance  of 
42 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

lower  ChaflBnch  Street.  Perhaps  they 
would  come  back  for  something,  he 
thought  wistfully,  but  suddenly  remem- 
bered that  if  they  had  forgotten  anything 
they  could  buy  another  to  use  while  they 
were  gone. 


VII 


HEY    must    have    come    back 
again  that  day,   pompous    and 
beautiful  as  before,  passing  swift- 
ly with  those   prancing   steeds, 
and  —  wonder    of    wonders  !  — 
those   precious  figures   still  un- 
broken on  the  shelf!    The  little  boy  saw 
them  often  after  that,  saw  oftenest  the 
woman  with  the  little,  white,  golden  girl 
by  her  side,  saw  how  like  a  queen  the 
mother   sat  in  her  shimmering  carriage 
robes,  how  like  a  princess  in  some  night 
Arabian  sat  her  Httle  girl. 
Rat-Si-tat-Si-tat-tat! 

They  were  there  before  him  in  the  gate- 
way. 

Rat-a,-ta.t-SL,  tat-a-taX-a — 
They  were  gone  again. 
44 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

Often  when  they  had  come  back  and 
had  disappeared  up  the  speckled  driveway, 
crunching  its  pebbles  gloriously  beneath 
them  as  they  swept  in  state  to  the — 
French  place — you  know — with  the  little 
roof  to  drive  imder  and  not  get  wet ;  often 
then  the  little  boy,  peering  through  the 
fence,  would  watch  long  and  earnestly  the 
house  which  had  swallowed  them;  would 
scan  its  windows,  up-stairs  and  down,  to 
see  if  it  grew  more  kindly  at  their  entering. 
No,  you  would  not  have  known  that  a  soul 
was  there. 

Big  houses  do  not  notice  little  things  like 
souls,  my  Barbara.  It  is  not  well-bred  to 
relax  a  cold,  stone  face,  lest  the  wrinkles 
and  crow's-feet  creep  upon  it  before  their 
time,  under  the  cover  of  too  much  smiling. 
It  is  only  the  little  ones,  the  little  houses 
all  in  a  row,  that  watch  for  folk,  to  beam 
upon  them  as  they  reach  the  gate,  and 
beam  upon  them  as  they  enter,  and  beam 
and  beam  as  long  as  they  are  there.  They 
are  without  a  thought  for  the  wrinkles  that 
♦  45 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

are  to  come  with  too  much  time  and  beam- 
ing, when  they  shall  be  old  Uttle  grandmo- 
ther-houses and  sit  and  doze  in  the  vines 
and  the  sun.     Sad  and  sorrowful  they  sit 
when  no  one  comes  to  them,  not  even  a 
child  after  school  is  done;  and  of  all  who 
enter  they  love  those  best  who  climb  their 
steps  and  leave  there  battered  little  toys. 
This  you  will  find,  my  Barbara,  to  be  true : 
that  the  more  a  little  house  beams  and 
beams,  the  more  Httle  children  cHmb  its 
knees  in  the  warm  spring  sun.     See  it, 
smiling  with  children!     Listen,  then;  you 
will  hear  it  singing  with  them  too.     Many 
a  Httle  house  glows  and  hums  all  day, 
mothering  but  one. 

All  this  the  boy  did  not  dream  of  then. 
No,  only  how  grand  and  beautiful  it  must 
be  within,  he  thought— within  that  house 
which  did  not  deign  to  notice  him  with 
even  a  corner  of  any  of  its  hundred  eyes, 
but  looked  before  it  into  space,  grandly, 
as  if  nothing— nothing  at  all!— stood 
watching  through  the  fence. 
46 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

True,  it  was  only  a  neighbor  boy  mak- 
ing up  stories.  All  gold-y  and  like  a 
fairy  tale  it  was,  inside  that  house,  he  told 
himself — silk-lined  and  padded,  and  with 
all  soft,  furry  things  for  the  Httle  girl  to 
play  upon ;  for  he  remembered  that  other 
princess  in  the  story-book,  and  the  seven 
feather-beds  on  which  she  slept,  and  the 
pea  beneath  them,  and  the  black-and-blue 
spot  which  it  made,  through  all  that  seven- 
fold softness,  in  her  soft,  white,  royal  back. 

The  butcher's  boy  had  been  inside  the 
fence,  and  had  seen  once  with  his  own  eyes 
(for  his  cousin  was  a  butler)  the  house  of 
a  millionaire.  He  had  seen,  he  said,  "the 
pitchers  on  the  wall — pitchers  that  cost 
a  thousand  dollars — oh,  gee,  yes,  more'n 
that!"  He  had  seen  the  rugs  that  "e't 
folks  up  when  they  was  tigers!"  He  had 
seen  the  deer-horns,  and  the  stuffed  yet 
grizzly  bears,  and  "a  lot  o'  eagles,  an' 
spears,  an'  pistols,  an'  armer  on  the  wall. 
Gee,  yes!" 

"What's  armer?"  Cookie  asked. 
47 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Htih!    Don't  yer  know  what  armer 
is?" 
"No." 

"Huh!  Why,  say,  I  seen  one  pistol  so 
big,  one  shot  'd  kill  ten  burglars  to  once — 
oh,  more'n  that.     Gee,  yes." 

"And  do  they  ever  shoot  it  any  more?" 
asked  a  major-general. 

"Gee,  yes." 

"  Does  it  make  a  big  noise  ?" 

"Well,  you  ought  to  hear  it.  You'd 
think  it  made  a  big  noise,  I  guess." 

"How  big,  Dan?", 

"Gee,  yes." 

"Dan,  how  big  a  noise  does  it  make?" 

"Why,  say,  the  last  time  they  shot  it, 
it  blew  both  triggers  off  and  killed  the 
fellow  what  was  a-shootin'  it." 

"When  was  that?" 

"  Oh,  I  dunno.  Three  or  four  thousand 
years  ago." 

And  Dan  had  held  it  in  his  hands! 

Yes,  all  like  a  fairy  tale  the  life  must  be 
within  those  walls,  he  thought— else  why 
48 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

would  the  little  girl  stay  so  long  there? 
Why  did  she  never  come  outside  to  play  ? 
There  were  wondrous  places  to  play  in  in 
her  great,  green  square ;  in  it  forest  snow- 
balls and  smoke-trees  and  flowering  cur- 
rants and  Japanese  quinces  grew,  and 
lilacs,  one  bush  alone  of  them  bigger  than 
all  those  lilacs,  lilac  and  white,  in  his  own 
yard  opposite;  and  there,  under  all  those 
blossoming  shrubs,  and  under  the  trel- 
lised  wistaria,  old  and  gnarled,  it  was  all 
like  tents — tents  for  those  who  happened 
to  be  soldiers,  Indian  tepees  for  beaded 
braves,  houses  all  swept  and  dusted  by 
the  new  brooms  of  the  wind,  and  to  let, 
unfurnished,  to  dolls  and  little  girls. 

She  could  have  had  a  new  house  every 
day  to  play  in,  that  golden  little  girl,  or  a 
whole  green,  busy  little  town  of  houses  all 
at  once,  in  her  magic  forest,  simply  by 
hanging  on  the  fence  some  afternoon  and 
crying  to  mothers  across  the  way : 
"Come  over,  and  bring  your  dolls!" 
And  the  boys  would  have  climbed  her 
49 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

trees  for  her,  would  have  shot  any  bears 
that  might  shuffle  around— and  think  of 
her  valentines ! 

Perhaps  if  he  watched  and  waited  but 
long  enough  she  would  come  some  day  and 
play  there  near  the  fence  and  see  him  peer- 
ing through  the  bars,  and  tell  him  her 
first  two  names  and  ask  him  his.  So  he 
waited,  playing  by  himself  and  watching 
lest  she  come  when  he  was  not  looking 
and  go  unseen.  And  the  days  passed,  but 
she  did  not  come. 

Wonderful,  oh,  my  Barbara,  must  be  the 
house  that  can  hold  a  child  in  the  spring- 
time. Was  it  spring  there,  too,  within 
those  walls  ?  Were  there  boughs  of  emer- 
ald, blossoms  of  milk-white  pearls  ?  Did  the 
singing  birds  there  build  their  nests,  straw 
by  straw,  chirp  by  chirp,  whir  by  whir— 
those  hanging  nests,  golden  and  shining, 
with  a  cup  for  water  and  one  for  seed  and 
a  bone  for  their  Httle  brown  bills  ? 

There  stood  a  Uttle  boy,  wistful,  waiting 
outside  her  fence,  and  on  its  other  side  all 
SO 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

those  green  things  in  her  magic  forest 
beckoning  to  him  with  flowered  arms  and 
making  room  for  him  underneath — just 
room  enough  for  a  major-general  and  his 
sword.  Yet  he  dared  not  go  to  them.  A 
man,  remember,  lurked  somewhere  in  those 
leafy  depths  to  poimce  upon  naughty,  lit- 
tle, playing  boys ;  and  so  he  stood  there — 
he,  mind  you,  who  was  to  be  a  hero ! — and 
pinched  his  cheeks  tighter  between  those 
bars  and  wished  and  wondered. 

He  wondered  how  the  little  girl  could 
see  them  there,  those  tents  and  tepees  so 
empty  and  forlorn,  and  those  green  lit- 
tle houses  looking  so  lonely  for  dolls  to 
shelter  from  the  sim — how  she  could  see 
them  with  those  great  blue  eyes  of  hers 
and  not  nm  to  them,  singing,  nm  to  them 
swiftly  with  twinkling,  slippered  feet  and 
tossing  curls,  out  of  the  great  house  into 
the  wind  and  the  morning,  to  take  their 
outstretched  blossoms  in  her  hands  and 
smell  them  and  tell  them  what  she  was 
that  day — queen  or  fairy  or  little  moth- 

51 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

er,  and,  if  the  mother,  how  her  children 
did,  and  which  was  naughtiest,  and  how 
many  loaves  she  must  bake  with  the 
mom  half  flown. 

Yet  she  never  went  to  them,  and  the 
little  boy  could  not — so  there  they  stood, 
lonely  and  childless  and  ever  beckoning 
in  the  sun  and  wind,  mom  after  morning, 
with  the  flowers  of  spring  dropping,  drop- 
ping— petal  by  petal,  tear  by  tear. 


VIII 


T  fell  so  softly  it  was  never 
missed,  that  sword  of  a  major- 
general,  somewhere  by  the  fence. 
After  all,  who  could  tell?  For 
years  and  years  there  might  never 
be  another  war  to  go  to,  whereas 
at  all  times  one  could  be  a  millionaire. 
A  millionaire ! 

Is  it  not  a  gray-headed  man  with  a  gold- 
headed  cane  in  his  hand?  A  millionaire 
wears  a  white  vest  and  rides  in  a  carriage 
with  ornaments  on  the  mantel  -  shelf ;  a 
millionaire  lives  in  a  house  all  shut  and 
silent,  with  a  rose-and-cream-colored  wife 
inside,  and  a  little,  white,  golden  girl ;  and 
keeps  in  the  bank  down-town,  all  tied  in 
bags,  one  million  dollars  !  —  exactly  one 
million,  mind! — no  more,  no  less. 
53 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

And  it  is  so  easy  to  be  one  if  you  set 
your  mind  to  it  and  follow  the  recipe  the 
self-made  men  have  left  behind.  First, 
you  must  be  an  American.  You  need  not 
be  bom  one,  but  you  must  come  over  if 
you  are  not.  Then  it  is  best  to  be  very 
poor — the  poorer  the  better,  as  every 
poor  boy  knows.  Do  they  not  tell  him 
in  school  how  other  poor  boys  started 
— started  with  nothing! — "nothing,  my 
dear  yotmg  friends.  Not  a  lovely  house 
like  yours,  little  boy  on  the  front  seat. 
Not  a  beautiful  school-house  like  this  one 
with  the  s-star-spangled  banner  floating 
above  it.  No,  my  dear  young  friends, 
whose  bright,  intelHgent  faces  I  see  be- 
fore me,  they  started  with  nothing  and 
became  by  dint  of  unremitting  toil ..." 

Even  he  was  a  poor  boy  once,  that  little 
girl's  father — ^poorer  than  the  boy  now 
peering  through  his  fence. 

Then  when  you  are  poor  and  an  Ameri- 
can, you  must  buy  no  candy,  mind,  nor 
smoke,  nor  swear,  but  save  your  pennies 
54 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

and  obey  your  parents  and  stand  one 
hundred  in  arithmetic — if  you  can.  Sweep 
out  an  office  then — sweep  for  your  life, 
my  boy ! — till  they  notice  how  well  you  do 
it,  and  so,  by  dint  of  unremitting  toil  .  .  . 

"Father,"  said  the  little  boy  who  was 
to  be  one,  "why  weren't  you  a  million- 
aire?" 

Said  the  little  boy's  father,  watching 
the  smoke  rings  rise,  "I  was  always  so 
busy,  son.     Besides — " 

"Besides  what,  father?" 

"There's  a  sort  of  a  knack  about  it, 
little  boy." 

Ah,  but  the  knack  is  so  easy!  It  lies 
in  choosing  what  kind  you  will  be.  He 
made  it  in  oil,  that  little  girl's  father. 
He  would  make  it  in  what  —  that  little 
boy?  In  what?  Not  oil.  He  would 
have  no  grease.  Say,  rather,  sugar — 
candy!    M'm,  chocolate  creams! 

You  see,  my  Barbara,  he  had  the  knack 
of  it,  that  Uttle  boy. 

"And  if  I  do,  father,"  he  said,  "I'll 
55 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

give  you  and  mother  a  hundred — oh,  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars!" 
"Good  gracious,  son!" 
"Apiece,  father." 

"  Two  hundred  thousand !  My  son,  give 
me  your  hand.  Thanks — thanks  in  ad- 
vance— and  good  luck,  my  boy." 

Good  luck,  my  boy!  ...  a  deep,  kind 
voice  it  was,  years  and  years  ago,  from 
a  chair  all  gorgeous  with  pomegranate 
blooms  ,  .  . 

So  the  little  boy  saved  his  pennies,  one 
by  one,  till  there  were  seventy  and  three 
— ^just  three  and  seventy,  dear  Barbara, 
he  remembers  well,  all  safe  in  a  little,  red, 
fretted  bank  with  a  little,  white,  fretted 
door.  When  the  door  was  opened — lo! 
before  you  there  stood  a  little  blue  man 
with  a  yellow  tray  in  his  hand ;  and  you 
put  your  penny  on  the  tray—bang!  and 
the  door  went  shut  again.  And  if  you 
shut  it,  peeking  the  while  through  the 
fretwork,  white  or  red,  you  saw  the  lit- 
tle blue  man  passing  the  penny  through 
56 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

a  yellow  slot — to  lie  there  forever  more. 
He  was  an  honest  blue  man  and  never 
kept  one. 

How  did  the  little  boy  know  ? 

Ah !  There  was  a  passage — subterranean 
— yes,  under  the  bank — and  three  screws 
to  it,  and  a  screw-driver  on  the  kitchen 
shelf!    So  the  little  boy  knew. 

He  knew  there  were  three  and  seventy 
lying  there.  He  first  knew  it  when  he 
went  to  bed  one  night  —  he  had  added 
seven  to  sixty-six.  He  knew  it  next 
morning  when  he  rose.  Next  day  he  re- 
membered by  the  comer  store  —  by  the 
soda -foim tain — the  pleasantest  way  you 
could  go  to  school.  He  remembered  it 
when  he  passed  the  fountain  on  his  noon 
way  home  again,  seeing  the  lists  of  syrups 
— ^not  surrups  now — on  the  card  in  the 
window : 

Vanilla  Lemon 

Orange  Peach 

STRAWBERRY 

57 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

S-strawberry!  Say  it  again.  S-straw- 
berry!  Can  you  not  see  it,  Barbara,  that 
rich,  red  syrup — and  the  fizz? — the  bub- 
bling fizz,  rosy  with  strawberry  juice! 

Ah,  yes,  he  remembered ;  and  three  and 
seventy  less  five  are  sixty  and  eight;  and 
what  is  five— more  or  less— compared  to 
the  fizz  you  get? 

Sixty  and  eight. 

Sixty  and  eight  when  he  went  to  bed 
that  night.  Sixty  and  eight  when  he  rose 
next  morn,  for  the  little  blue  man  was 
honest  by  night  as  by  day.  If  he  had 
gone  straight  home  that  nooning— if  some- 
thing had  happened  as  he  stood  on  the 
comer  by  the  store,  something  in  the 
street,  a  dog-fight  even,  or  runaway;  if 
his  hat,   say,   had  been  blown  by  the 

wind — 

Then  he  might  never  have  seen  the 

thing. 

But  all  was  quiet.    There  was  nothing 
to  look  at  but  the  thing  in  the  window, 
smiling    upon    him.     Can   wood    smile? 
58 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

Yes,  when  it  is  a  bat — a  ball-bat,  say, 
marked  Dandy,  and  not  such  another  in 
the  school.  It  smiled  on  the  little  boy 
who  was  to  be  a  hero — or,  rather,  a  mill- 
ionaire. 

And  it  only  cost  fifty  cents! 

Yet,  if  one  is  ever  to  save  his  money . . . 
still,  think  of  the  bargain!  Was  it  not  a 
Dandy?  Did  it  not  say  so  itself?  Did 
not  the  other  boys  say  so  ? — and  to-mor- 
row— suppose  it  were  gone? 

And  yet,  again,  if  one  is  to  save  his 
money,  one  must  begin — sometime. 

So  be  it:  sometime,  then. 

"Dear  God,"  he  said  —  that  night,  it 
was ;  said  it  impulsively,  not  on  his  knees, 
but  standing,  alone  in  his  room,  hands 
by  his  side,  heels  together,  as  he  some- 
how fancied  one  facing  his  accuser  should 
— "dear  God,  let's  begin  all  over  again." 

So  they  did — with  just  eighteen  cents 

between  them  in  the  little,  red,  fretted 

bank — and  now  that  the  ball-bat  was  out 

of  the  way  (standing  in  the  comer,  it  was, 

59 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

all  ready  and  waiting  for  the  morning 
bells)— now  that  the  ball-bat  was  behind 
him,  the  way  would  be  easier,  somehow, 
and  sweeter,  would  it  not? 


IX 


HAT  became  of  the  eighteen 
cents  no  one  knows  but  the  lit- 
tle blue  man,  gone  like  them- 
selves this  many  a  year.  He  was 
honest  as  ever  to  the  end,  though 
rather  less  blue  as  time  went  on, 
and  was  last  seen  upon  a  garret  stair. 
The  bank  was  empty,  but  he  still  stood 
there  with  his  tray  in  his  little  iron  hands. 
They  began  all  over  again,  God  and 
that  dreaming  boy.  He  has  told  me 
often  of  the  day — of  the  wonderful,  roar- 
ing, dancing  day  when  he  swallowed  twice 
to  his  former  once,  for  they  had  fotmd  a 
place  for  him — to  sweep,  as  it  were,  and 
rise  in  its  golden  dust  by  imremitting 
toil. 

Down-town  in  an  office  they  gave  him 
s  6i 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

a  desk,  just  big  enough  for  his  littleness, 
by  the  door,  and  there  he  sat,  and  went  at 
their  bidding  and  came  at  their  calling, 
and  every  Saturday  stopped  at  a  window 
for  a  June-colored  bill.  And  he  swept  so 
well — ^we  will  call  it  sweeping — that  they 
noticed  him  by-and-by,  just  as  the  self- 
made  men  had  said,  and  came  and  told 
him,  and  gave  him  a  desk  to  fit  his  bigger- 
ness,  and  farther  from  the  door.  And 
so,  dear  Barbara,  he  began  to  be  a  hero 
as  he  had  planned,  a  little  faster  even 
than  he  had  hoped,  and  you  should  have 
heard  him  whistle  then  and  seen  him 
smile. 

Why,  even  the  little,  white,  golden  girl, 
grown  tall  and  rosier,  creamier,  more  like 
a  princess  every  day,  though  she  sat  no 
longer  on  the  —  hassock,  was  it  not? — 
even  she  could  not  make  him  envious 
any  more.  Would  he  not  rise  as  her 
father  had,  and  leave,  ere  long,  the 
little  gray-blue  house  with  its  vines  and 
sparrow-nests  and  its  pomegranate  chairs  ? 
62 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

Would  he  not  build  him  a  house  like  her 
father's  house,  in  a  great,  green  square? 
Ay,  one  of  these  days,  they  would  gild  a 
cane  for  him  and  he  would  ride  behind 
prancing  horses  and  statuettes.  One  of 
these  days  he  would  say,  proudly: 

"  Father,  you  have  worked  long  enough. 
Come,  you  shall  wear  a  white  vest.  Moth- 
er, dearest,  take  off  yotir  thimble.  You 
will  strain  your  eyes.  Keep  them  to  gaze 
proudly  on  your  son." 

How  he  would  make  them  love  him 
then !  It  would  be  so  easy  with  the  bags 
all  filled  down-town. 

"Mother,"  he  would  cry,  taking  her 
face,  soft  as  velvet,  between  his  hands — 
"mother,  just  wait  ..." 

And  then  she  would  smile  at  him  through 
her  glasses,  the  smile  that  a  mother  smiles 
at  her  little  boy  grown  big  enough  to  lift 
her  in  his  arms. 

"Will  I  have  time  to  finish  this  slipper 
first,  my  son?" 

And  would  knit  on,  smiling. 

63 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Father,"  he  would  cry,  his  young  face 
glowing,  pacing  that  little  room  of  books 
and  memories — "father,  just  wait  ..." 

"Gk)od  luck,  my  boy." 

Always  "Good  luck,  my  boy!"  .  .  . 
that  deep,  kind  voice  from  a  chair  all  gor- 
geous with  pomegranate  flowers.  And  a 
hearty  way  with  him  he  had,  even  then 
when  his  steps  lagged,  for  he  had  toiled, 
toiled  unremittingly,  all  day  long,  all 
through  his  years,  and  was  not  a  hero — 
but  only,  as  one  might  say,  my  Barbara, 
a  nice,  uncle-y,  goodman. 


"Are  you  asleep.  Uncle  Jerry?" 
"N-no,"  I  said,  reaching  for  the  tobac- 
co-jar, "I  was  only  thinking." 
"What  were  you  thinking  of?"* 
"  Something  or  other.     Nothing  much." 
"Uncle  Jerry!" 
"What,  my  dear?" 
"Uncle  Jerry,  you  were  asleep." 
"I  was  not  asleep." 
64 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Uncle  Jerry  Down!''  cried  my  niece, 
pursing  her  lips. 

"I  was  not  asleep,"  I  repeated,  firmly. 

"  But  your  eyes  have  been  shut  ever  so 
long." 

"  Can't  you  think  with  your  eyes  shut  ?" 
I  demanded,  filling  my  pipe.  Now,  no 
man  likes  to  be  caught  sleeping,  though  I 
don't  know  why,  I  am  sure.  It  is  nothing 
to  be  ashamed  of.  Still — I  had  not  been 
sleeping. 

"Uncle  Jerry,"  said  my  niece,  putting 
her  hands  on  my  knees  and  shaking  her 
head  in  my  face  accusingly,  "you  haven't 
been  making  a  sin-gle  sound." 

"My  dear  young  lady,"  I  replied,  strik- 
ing a  match,  "that  doesn't  prove  any- 
thing. Look  out,  or  I'll  bum  your 
nose." 

"  Oh,  Uncle  Jerry!"  said  my  niece,  sadly, 
and — pff ! — blew  out  my  light. 

"Come  back  if  you  dare!"  I  cried,  but 
she  did  not  dare. 

"Just   see  the  moonlight,"   she  said, 
65 


THE    FLOWER   OF   YOUTH 

kneeling  on  the  window-seat  and  peering 
through  the  vines. 

"It's  my  pipe-light  you  see,"  I  said, 
rising,  and  stood  by  the  windows  at  her 
side. 

"  Don't  you  wish  that  you  lived  in  the 
big  house.  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"No,"  I  said.  "It  isn't  anything  to 
what  it  used  to  be." 

"What  did  it  used  to  be?" 

"A  whole  palace,  five  times  as  big." 

"Did  they  cut  it  down.  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"No.  It  just  shrank,"  I  said.  "And 
you  ought  to  have  seen  the  trees  there 
then,  when  I  was  a  boy." 

"  Well,  they  couldn't  have  been  any  big- 
ger," said  my  niece. 

"They  were  bigger." 

"Fudge,  Uncle  Jerry!  What  do  you 
take  me  for?" 

* '  Fudge  yourself !"  I  cried .  ' '  They  were 
five  times  as  tall." 

"The  trees  were?" 

"The  trees." 

66 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"What— those  trees?" 

"  Those  very  same  identical  trees,  I  tell 
you.  And  there  were  five  times  as  many 
of  them,  too — a  whole  green  forest." 

"Oh,  they  cut  them  down,  I  suppose," 
said  my  niece,  "for  firewood." 

"They  did  nothing  of  the  sort." 

"Well,  land's  sake.  Uncle  Jerry,  what 
did  happen  to  those  trees  ?" 

"  Why,  some  got  shorter,  and  some  just 
naturally  went  away." 

"Went  away!"  cried  Barbara. 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "went  away — of  their 
own  accord." 

"Uncle  Jerry,"  said  my  niece,  "you 
talk  like  a  fairy  tale." 

"Tut!"  said  I,  and  turned  to  my  chair 
again. 

"  Miss,  that's  my  seat." 

"Say  Pretty,  please." 

"  Pretty  Please  nothing!"  I  cried,  hotly. 
"You  have  my — " 

"Aha!  You  said  it!  You  said  it!" 
she  cried,  and  bounded  up  again.  "Take 
67 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

your  old  chair,  Uncle  Jerry.  It's  all  wob- 
blety,  anyhow.     See  how  the  arm — " 

"Barbara!"  I  cried,  sharply,  "take 
care!  There  isn't  another  chair  like  that 
in  the  whole  world." 

"  I  should  think  not,"  she  replied,  scorn- 
fully.    "It's  a  disgrace  to  the  house." 

"Disgrace!"  I  cried. 

"Yes,"  said  my  niece,  calmly,  "I'd  put 
it  in  the  attic  if  I  were  Aunt  Kate." 

" I'd  like  to  see  you  put  it  in  the  attic!" 

"Well,  I'd  have  it  covered,  then.  What 
are  those  fimny  old  faded  flowers,  any- 
how?" 

"Funny  old  faded  flowers!"  I  cried,  and 
could  have  boxed  her  ears  for  her  idle 
chattering. 

Fiuiny  old  faded  flowers! 

They  were  pomegranate  blooms. 


T  doesn't  seem  possible,"  my 
niece  continued,  "  that  you  could 
ever  have  been  a  little  boy  in 
this  very  room.  Uncle  Jerry." 

"Any  more  than  it  seems  like- 
ly that  you  may  be  a  little  old 
lady  here  one  of  these  days,  sitting  in 
that  very  chair." 

"I    can't    imagine    myself    old,"    said 
Barbara. 

"  Nor  I,  my  dear.     I  suppose  I  shall 
always  think  of  you  as  a  child." 

"  But  I'm  not  a  child  any  longer.     You 
forget  I'm—" 

"Almost  a  young  lady  then,"  said  I. 

"And  if  ever  I  am  an  old  lady,"  she 

went  on,  evidently  not  quite  convinced 

that  she  ever  would  be  one,  "  and  if  I  come 

69 


THE    FLOWER   OF    YOUTH 

here  to  this  little  room,  I  wonder  if  I'll 
remember  this  very  time,  Uncle  Jerry — 
you  sitting  there  and  I  here,  and  the 
green  lamp  and  the  books  and  all?" 

"Maybe,"  said  I. 

"Just  think.  Uncle  Jerry — me,  with  two 
little  gray  curls!" 

"Very  likely,  my  dear." 

"How  funny!" 

"Odd,  isn't  it?" 

"  And  kind  of  s-hivery  !*' 

"So?" 

"  Yes.  I  don't  like  to  think  about  sad 
things — getting  old  and  all  like  that." 

"Getting  old?"  said  I. 

"Oh,  I  hate  black  things!" 

"Is  getting  old  black?" 

"Yes — and  gray  around  the  edges." 

"So  it  is,"  said  I,  running  my  fingers 
through  my  hair. 

"Oh,   I  like  bright  things,"  cried  my 

niece,  "and  laughing.     I  know  a  woman 

who  has  the  loveliest  laugh,   all  silvery 

and  like  running  up  a  scale.     I  think  I'll 

70 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

take  music-lessons,  Uncle  Jerry,  to  learn 
how  to  laugh." 

"Not  a  bad  idea,"  I  admitted;  "but 
I  fancy  the  music  is  in  her  soul,  my 
dear." 

"M'm,"  she  assented,  absently.  "And 
I'll  have  my  room  bright,  too,  all  my  life — 
pink,  I  think.  It's  funny,  though — now 
this  room  isn't  what  you'd  call  bright. 
Uncle  Jerry,  with  so  many  old  rattletrap, 
faded  chairs  and  sad-colored  books  around, 
and  tobaccoey  things  —  yet  it  always 
seems  bright,  somehow." 

"Yes,"  I  acknowledged,  gazing  about 
me  and  squinting  at  those  old  familiar 
friends.  In  a  moonish  sort  of  way,  year 
after  year,  I  had  gone  on  regarding  them 
as  gay  as  ever  they  were  when  we  were 
young  together.  "How  do  you  account 
for  it?"  I  asked. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  replied. 

"  Is  it  the  grate  fire,  do  you  think,  with 
the  old  blue  tiles  around  it?" 

"Partly,"  she  admitted,  "and  partly 
71 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

the  tall  little  windows,  all  in  a  row;  but 
there's  something  else,  Uncle  Jerry." 

"There  are  some  twinkling  faces  on  the 
shelves,"  I  suggested. 

"  Y-yes,  but  a  lot  of  dull  ones,  too." 

"Well,  take  the  tobacco  smoke,"  said  I, 
blowing  rings.  "It's  a  lovely,  lightish 
kind  of  blue,  when  you  come  to  notice  it." 

"  M'm,"  said  Barbara,  as  if  she  had  bare- 
ly heard. 

"It's  wonderful,"  I  mused  aloud,  "but 
there  is  something  in  the  very  air  of  this 
Httle  room  as  if  it  were  never  left  alone ;  as 
if  some  of  us  were  always  here,  or  at  least 
had  just  nm  out  a  moment  and  would  be 
back  again." 

"I  suppose  that's  because  we  leave 
things  around  so,"  said  my  niece,  glancing 
at  her  book  upon  the  rug. 

"By  George!"  said  I,  "I  believe  you've 
hit  it,  Barbara.  We  do  leave  things 
around  considerably,  don't  we?" 

"So  Aunt  Kate  says." 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  vaguely  remembering 
72 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

a  word  or  two  I  had  heard  upon  the  sub- 
ject; "so  she  does." 

I  noticed  then  the  quaint — er — artistic 
arrangement  of  my  pipes  about  the  place, 
so  that  wherever  I  might  chance  to  roam 
there,  one  or  another  of  them  seemed  al- 
ways handy. 

"I  try  to  pick  things  up,"  said  Bar- 
bara. 

"Oh,  so  do  I.  I  pick  things  up,"  I  re- 
plied. "Then  I — I  lay  them  down  again. 
One  can't  be  always  carrying  them  about 
with  him,  you  know." 

"  That's  so,"  said  Barbara. 

"  I  do  leave  a  kind  of  trail  behind  me," 
I  confessed. 

"That's  what  Aimt  Kate  says." 

"So?" 

"I  think  she's  very  patient.  Uncle 
Jerry." 

"Patientest    little    woman    that    ever 
lived." 
•    "She  doesn't  nag  one,"  said  Barbara. 

"Marvellous  little  woman,  your  Atmt 

73 


THE    FLOWER   OP    YOUTH 

Kate,  and  one  of  the  few  I  have  ever  known 
who  leaves  a  man's  things  where  he  can 
find  them." 

"That's  apt  to  make  the  room  mussy, 
though,"  said  Barbara. 

"Nonsense!"  quoth  I.  "A  purely  fem- 
inine point  of  view." 

Then  for  a  time  we  were  both  silent. 
She  was  leaning  back  in  her  chair  with  her 
hands  folded  in  her  lap  and  the  firelight 
fondHng  her  young,  sweet  face — just  such 
a  face  as  you  meet  mornings  when  the 
bells  ring. 

"My  dear,"  said  I,  "a  happy  room  is 
like  a  rose-jaf,  don't  you  think? — full  of 
all  the  fragrant  little  flowery  things  that 
ever  happened  there.  Even  this  little 
room — " 

"  Is  like  a  tobacco-jar,  Uncle  Jerry,"  she 
interrupted  me,  for  she  is  younger  than 
she  thinks,  that  niece  of  mine. 

"My  dear,"  said  I,  reprovingly,  "you 
forget  that  tobacco  is  good  for  flowers." 

"And  this  little  time  we're  having  now, 
74 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

Uncle  Jerry — ^will  it  go  into  the  rose-jar, 
do  you  think?" 

"Doubtless,"  said  I.  "I  hope  we  have 
added  a  petal  or  two  to-night." 

Barbara  pondered. 

"At  last,"  I  told  myself,  gazing  at  her 
pensive  face  so  full  of  poetry  in  the  fire- 
light— "at  last  she  has  caught  the  spirit 
of  the  thing." 

"Well—"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  I  encouraged  her,  gently,  lest  I 
break  the  spell. 

"I'll  have  the  carpet  pink,  too,"  she 
said. 


xr 


NYWAY,"  she  told  me,  "I  can't 
imagine  this  room  without  you, 
Uncle  Jerry." 

"  It  got  along  very  nicely  with- 
out me  once, ' '  I  replied, ' '  and  will 
again.  Somebody  else's  uncle 
felt  very  much  at  home  here,  I  dare  say, 
before  my  time.  My  father  sat  in  this 
very  chair,  reading  and  smoking,  and  I 
played  marbles  here  by  the  grate  and 
bumped  his  knees,  and  made  him  lose  his 
place  with  a  lot  of  questions;  and  now — " 
"Now,"  said  Barbara,  "it  is  you  sitting 
and  smoking  and  reading  in  the  arm-chair, 
Uncle  Jerry,  and  I  a-bothering  you." 

"Well,  I  shouldn't  say  'bothering,'  my 
dear.  But,  you  see,  if  this  room  could 
talk—" 

76 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Just  think!"  cried  Barbara.  "What 
is  the  most  wonderful  thing  that  ever  hap- 
pened here,  do  you  suppose,  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"Ah?"  I  replied. 

Then  she  lowered  her  voice,  glancing 
over  her  shoulder  at  the  windows  so  white 
with  moonlight  it  seemed  as  if  the  room 
were  open  to  the  world  and  night.  She 
shuddered,  and  hugged  herself. 

"A  m-murder,  do  you  suppose,  Uncle 
Jerry?" 

"Good  gracious,  no!"  said  I.  "I  hope 
not,  my  dear.  I  shouldn't  like  to  even 
dream  of  such  a  thing." 

"Or  a  love-affair!"  suggested  my  niece, 
who,  by -the -way,  considers  The  Abbe 
Constantine  the  loveliest  book  in  the  whole 
little  room. 

"M'm — very  likely,  my  dear,"  I  replied, 
more  cheerfully,  gazing  at  the  five  en- 
chanted windows  in  the  vines.  "It  is  a 
very  sentimental  little  room,  in  a  way, 
and  love  affairs  are  sometimes  very  won- 
derful." 

6  77 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"With  a  beautiful  girl  in  it,"  said  my 
niece,  also  glancing  at  the  windows. 

"By  all  means,"  said  I.  "A  beautiful 
girl  with  dark-brown  hair  and  dark-brown 
eyes." 

"  Blue  eyes.  Uncle  Jerry 

"M'm  —  well,  don't  you  think  brown 
eyes  go  better  with  the  room?" 

"Oh,  blue  are  so  romantic,  Uncle  Jer- 
ry. They're  in  most  of  the  songs,  you 
know." 

"  They  rhyme  with  True,"  said  I.  "  But 
you  must  remember  that  it  is  a  question  of 
what  colored  eyes  she  did  have — not  what 
she  ought  to  have,  my  dear." 

"  I  don't  understand.  Uncle  Jerry." 

"Why,  this  girl  is  supposed  to  be  one 
who  actually  did  Uve  in  this  very  room,  is 
she  not?" 

"Yes,  but  how  do  you  know  her  eyes 
were  brown.  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"True,"  said  I.  "I  never  thought  of 
that.  Somehow  they  seemed  brown  to 
me. 

78 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"But  as  long  as  we  don't  know  what 
color  her  eyes  were,  Uncle  Jerry,  why — " 

"Why,  of  course,"  I  assented,  "we  can 
make  them  blue,  my  dear." 

"And  she  had  a  dimple,"  said  my  niece. 

"Oh  yes;  two  of  them,"  I  replied, 
heartily.  "Two  of  the  prettiest  dimples 
you  ever  saw,  when  she  laughed  —  one 
right  here,  and  one  right  here.  They're 
gone  now." 

"  Gone  now  ?"  asked  my  niece. 

"Why,  yes.  You  would  never — there 
I  go  again,  supposing  things.  Still — ^now 
this  girl,  as  I  understand  it,  must  have 
Deen  here  quite  a  long  while  ago.  So 
her  dimples,  don't  you  see,  must  be  gone 
by  this  time." 

"  But  we're  only  thinking  of  her  as  she 
was  then.  Uncle  Jerry." 

"True,"  said  I.     "Proceed,  my  dear." 

"  She  had  two  dimples  then,  and  a  ta-11, 
willowy  form,"  said  my  niece.  "A  tall, 
willowy — " 

"On  the  contrary,"  said  I,  "she  was 

79 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

short  and  plump.  Short  and  plump,  my 
dear." 

"Oh,  do  you  think  so?"  asked  my 
niece,  regretfully. 

"Think  so!  Know  so!  She  just  came 
up  to  my — that  is  to  say,  as  I  see  her  now 
as  she  was  then,  she  was  just  about  as  tall 
as  my — shoulder  is  now,  my  dear." 

"Y-yes,"  said  my  niece,  grudgingly, 
"but  as  long  as  we  don't  know  that  she 
was  dumpy — " 

"I  didn't  say  dumpy.  She  was  not 
dumpy — not  at  all  dumpy.  Short,  yes — 
and  plump — but  not  dumpy,  my  dear.  I 
don't  see  her  dumpy,  at  all." 

There  are  words  I  hate.  Dumpy  is  one 
of  them. 

"Well,"  said  my  niece,  "as  long  as  we 
don't  know  she  was  short  and  fat  then, 
why  not  make  her  willowy.  It's  lots 
nicer." 

" To  be  tall  and  willowy!" 

"Oh  yes,  Uncle  Jerry — for  a  heroine." 

"Well,  just  as  you  say,  of  course.  It 
80 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

doesn't  make  any  particular  difference,  I 
suppose,  only  in  my  experience  the  short 
ones  are  much  the  cosier  to  have  around." 

"All  right,  then — ^just  as  you  say,  Uncle 
Jerry." 

"Oh  no — have  it  your  own  way,  my 
dear." 

"But  I  don't  much  care.  Uncle  Jerry, 
I—" 

"No,  have  her  tall,  Barbara,"  I  replied, 
generously,  " — tall  and  willowy  as  you 
please — six  feet,  if  you  like — a  regular 
grenadier." 

"And  her  name,"  said  Barbara,  "was 
Madelaine." 

"Um,"  said  I,  "well—" 

"Oh,  I  think  Madelaine  is  beautiful!" 
cried  my  niece,  earnestly. 

"To  be  sure,"  said  I,  "but—" 

"  And  it's  so  proud  and  haughty,  Uncle 
Jerry." 

"  Y-yes,  but  was  she  proud  and  haughty, 
do  you  think  ?  Are  short  and  plump  peo- 
ple apt  to — " 

8i 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"  But  we  said  she  was  tall  and  willowy, 
Uncle  Jerry." 

"  Proceed,  my  dear." 

"And  his  name.  Uncle  Jerry,  was — 
what?" 

" His  namer 

"Yes;  her  lover,  you  know." 

"Oh.     Well— say,  Billy." 

"  Oh,  not  Billy !"  cried  Barbara.  "  Not 
such  a  common  name.     Call  him — " 

"What?"  said  I. 

"I  like — ^Augustus,  pretty  well,  Uncle 
Jerry." 

"H'm  — Augustus,"  I  mused.  "But 
don't  you  think  —  isn't  it  —  doesn't  it 
strike  you  that  it's  a — lee-tle  bit  big  and 
formal,  my  dear,  for  such  a  common  little 
room?" 

"  Oh,  that  doesn't  make  any  difference," 
said  Barbara,  "in  a  story." 

"That's  so,"  said  I.  "Call  him  Au- 
gustus then— in  the  story.     Well?" 

"  Well,"  said  Barbara,  who,  I  was  begin- 
ning to  suspect,  had  visions  of  authorship, 
82 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"  they  were  here  in  this  very  room,  long, 
long  ago." 

"Long,  long  ago,"  I  repeated  ap- 
provingly. 

"And  Madelaine,"  said  my  niece,  "was 
arranging  the  flowers  here  on  this  very 
table." 

"True!"  I  cried.  "Her  arms  were  full 
of  lilacs." 

"  Roses,"  saifi  my  niece. 

"Lilacs,"  said  L  "There  are  so  many 
in  the  yard,  you  know." 

"All  right,"  said  Barbara,  "lilacs  then. 
Madelaine  was  arranging  the  lilacs  dain- 
tily—" 

"Of  course — daintily,"  I  assented. 

"In  a  quaint,  old-fashioned  jar,"  said 
my  niece,  her  face  glowing. 

"Sure,"  said  L  "And  do  you  know 
what  that  jar  was,  Barbara  Jane?" 

"No — what?"  asked  my  niece,  as  pa- 
tiently as  possible. 

"An  old  butter-crock,"  said  L  "Yes, 
sir,  it  was  an  old  butter  -  crock.     There 

83 


THE    FLOWER   OF    YOUTH 

wasn't  a  vase  in  the  whole  house  big 
enough  for  lilacs." 

My  niece  looked  at  me  suspiciously. 

"Uncle  Jerry,"  said  she,  "I'm  afraid 
you're  mixing  up  things." 

"Mixing  up  things?" 

"  Yes.     This  is  a  love-story,  you  know." 

"True,"  said  I,  "but  can't  you  have  a 
butter-crock  in  a  love-story?" 

"  It  would  be  a  little  odd.  Uncle  Jerry, 
to  say  the  least." 

"I  suppose  it  would,"  said  I.  "Yes,  I 
suppose  it  would.  And  was — er — Gustus 
here,  too,  fixing  the  lilacs?" 

"Oh  yes,  he  was  sitting  in  your  very 
chair." 

"I  see.    And  she  was  saying — ?" 

"That's  just  the  point.  What  was  she 
saying?"  queried  my  niece,  wrinkling  her 
brow. 

"What  would  she  naturally  be  saymg, 
do  you  think?"  I  asked. 

"Suppose  you  tell  it.  Uncle  Jerry." 

"  But  I'm  not  much  of  a  hand  at  stories." 
84 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Try,  anyhow,"  said  she. 

"I  take  it,"  said  I,  "that  she  would  be 
saying  something  about  the  flowers — er, 
like  this,  for  instance.     'Oh — oh — '" 

"Augustus,"  prompted  my  niece. 

"Thanks.     'Oh,  Augustus' — no.     No, 
my  dear,  that  doesn't  sound  right,  some- 
how." 

"But  his  name  was  Augustus,  Uncle 
Jerry." 

"  Y-yes,  but  wouldn't  she  call  him  Gussy 
— or  something  like  that — for  short,  you 
know?" 

"Gussy!    Horrors,  Uncle  Jerry!" 

"Well— Gusty,  then." 

"Mercy,  Uncle  Jerry!" 

"Or  even  Augie,"  I  suggested. 

"Don't  be  silly!  Madelaine  would  call 
him  Augustus." 

"  So  she  would.  You're  right,  my  dear. 
I  forgot  her  name  was  Madelaine.  In  that 
case  she  would  say,  'Oh,  Augustus,'  of 
coiu*se — *0h,  Augustus,  we  shall  be  so 
happy  now  in  this  little — '  " 
85 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"  But  she  would  be  married  to  Augustus 
then,  if  she  said  that,"  my  niece  protested. 

"Oh  yes,"  I  said.  "Of  course.  Mar- 
ried. Married  on  a  Thursday.  Rainy  in 
the  morning,  but  just  at  the  ceremony 
the  sun  came  out.  It  was  beautiful — 
beautiful,  my  dear.  Yes,  they  were  mar- 
ried, and — er — Gustus  had  brought  her 
home  to  this  very  room  to  live  till  they 
bought  a  bigger  one." 

"Oh,"  cried  my  niece,  "but  I  thought 
this  was  going  to  be  a  love-story!" 

"So  it  is,  my  dear." 

"  But  I  thought  a  love  story  was  before 
you  get  married!" 

"Well,  so,"  said  I,  "it  is — sometimes. 
But  not  always,  my  dear.  It  wasn't  in 
this  case." 

"  But  how  are  you  going  to  make  any 
love-scenes  then?" 

"Why,  easily  enough.  Here  stood  the 
beautiful  girl  arranging  the  lilacs  in  the 
butter-crock." 

"Yes,"  said  my  niece,  "but — " 
86 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Right  in  the  butter-crock,"  I  insisted, 
firmly,  "and  she  said — what  we've  said 
she  said,  you  know. 

"Yes — 'Oh,  Augustus.'  Go  on,  Uncle 
Jerry." 

"  Well,  then,  said  she,  *  Oh,  there  were 
some  of  the  loveliest  lilacs  by  the  window 
— er — Gustus,  but  I  couldn't  reach  them.' " 

"But  she  could  have  reached  them." 

"  Why,  no  she  couldn't.  What  are  you 
talking  about?" 

"  Why,  Uncle  Jerry,  she  was  tall  and — " 

"All  right,"  said  I.     "All  right.    You 
tell  the  story." 
•  "Oh,  go  on,  Uncle  Jerry." 

"No.  No,  I — I  simply  can't  imagine 
a  tall,  willowy  female  a-prowling  around 
this  room.     It  isn't  natural,  my  dear." 

"Well,  make  her  stumpy  then.  Uncle 
Jerry." 

"Stumpy!  Stumpy!"  I  cried.  "Not 
at  all.  Who  said  she  was  stumpy  ?  Would 
you  call  your  aunt  Kate — for  instance — 
for  example — stumpy?" 

87 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Aunt  Kate!  Mercy,  no!"  cried  Bar- 
bara. "She's  too  sweet  and  cuddly  for 
anything." 

"Exactly,"  I  cried.  "That's  what  I 
say.  That's  what  she  was  —  this  here — 
Madelaine.     Cuddly,  I  think  you  said?" 

"Cuddly,"  said  my  niece. 

"Cuddly,  as  you  say,"  I  repeated,  "and 
sweet." 

"And  then,  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"  Where  was  I  ?     I've  lost  my  place." 

"She  couldn't  reach  the — " 

"Oh  yes;  so  he  reached  them  for  her, 
you  see." 

"And  then?" 

"Well,"  said  I,  warming  to  my  theme, 
now  that  the  tall  and  willowy  business 
was  out  of  the  way  and  I  could  see  the 
picture,  plain  as  it  were,  before  my  very 
eyes,  "there  she  stood  by  that  very  table 
there  with  her  arms  full  of  lilacs,  and — er 
— Gustus  sitting  here  in  this  very  chair. 
Why,  I  can  see  her  now.     And  says  she : 

"'I  love  these  old,  flowery  chairs  and 
88 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

books  and  things  because  you  played  here 
when  you  were  only  a  little  boy  —  er — 
Gustus,  before  I  knew  you.' 

"And  says  he,  'M'm.'" 

"Not  'M'm,'  Uncle  Jerry!" 

"  Well,  that  was  the  gist  of  it,  my  dear. 
I've  forgotten  the  words.  And  then  says 
she — for  she  was  always  so  enthusiastic 
from  the  first — says  she: 

"  *  If  only  we  can  keep  our  hearts  yoimg — 
er — Gustus!*  she  cries,  sitting  on  the  arm 
of  that  very  chair  there"  (I  had  risen  to 
complete  the  tale).  '"See!  Even  an  old 
butter-crock  is  young  with  lilacs  in  it. 
If  only  we  can  keep  flowers  in  our  hearts, 
always !' 

'"The  flower  of  youth,'  says  I — er — 
Gustus,  fondling  her  hair,  for  she  was 
mighty  pretty,  I  tell  you,  with  her  big, 
brown  eyes  and  the  bloom  on  her  cheeks 
so  rosy  it  was  hard  to  pass  them. 

"'We  will  keep  young,'  says  she. 

*"0h  yes,'  says  he,  lightly  enough,  for 
their  life,  he  thought,  was  all  before  them ; 
89 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

it  didn't  occur  to  him  that  it  was  mostly 
right  then  and  there.     *0h  yes,'  says  he. 

"  I  forgot  to  say  it  was  a  Sunday  morn- 
ing, and  the  windows  were  open,  and  the 
flowers  outside,  and  the  flowers  inside, 
you  know — well — " 

"Is  that  all,  Uncle  Jerry?'; 

"Mm,"  said  I. 

"But  Where's  the  plot?'; 

"The  what?" 

"The  plot,"  said  she. 

" Do  you  have  to  have  a  plot?"  said  I. 

"Oh  yes,"  said  she,  "always — in  a 
story." 

"  True,"  said  I.     "  I  forgot— in  a  story." 


XII 


W 


f^ 


HEN  as  we  sat  there  dreamily 
it  came  to  me  how  like  the  Kate 
of  other  days  she  was.     It  was 

W'  not  her  eyes  or  mouth  or  cheeks, 
nor  yet  the  color  of  her  hair,  but 
altogether  that  grace  of  girlhood, 
that  flowemess,  so  lovely  that  I  never 
pass  it  even  in  the  public  thoroughfare 
without  an  inward  smiling. 

We  never  had  a  little  girl — so  once  a 
year  they  loan  us  Barbara.  Ruling  my 
lap  by  right  of  conquest,  she  queens  it 
over  me  till  only  love  for  me  remains — no 
awe  any  longer,  scarce  reverence  it  may 
seem  to  some,  but  she  tells  me  in  a  thou- 
sand ways  that  next  to  Kate  I  am  her 
favorite  of  relatives.  To  be  next  in  love 
to  Kate  is  love  enough  for  me.  To  be 
91 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

prized  so  highly  by  one  who  dotes  on  that 
Young  Pretender  should  be  honor  enough 
for  any  uncle-y  sort  of  fellow  with  his 
youth  behind  him. 

If  I  have  lost  her  awe  I  have  gained 
her  confidence — a  rarer  jewel,  for  by  its 
rays  I  have  caught  such  glimpses  of  a 
girl's  heart  as  should  make  me  the  better 
man  for  it.  So  when  she  talks  to  me  I 
do  not  jest  too  much,  but  Hsten  gravely, 
even  when  I  fain  would  laugh — and  then 
learn  often,  to  my  surprise,  what  is  no 
laughing  matter. 

That  which  is  now  so  rosy  in  Barbara's 
heart  I  still  find  fragrant  in  the  heart  of 
Kate,  and  love  it  so  that  I  would  have 
all  girls  not  grow  up  too  much.  Still,  I 
am  scarcely  the  guide,  I  know,  for  a  stren- 
uous age  Hke  this.  They  all  tell  me  I 
have  a  weakness  for  tender  things.  The 
men  folk  smile  sometimes  behind  my 
back,  and  even  Barbara  points  out  to  me 
the  errors  in  my  philosophy. 

My  niece  arose. 

92 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"I  won't  wait  up  for  Aunt  Kate  and 
the  boys,  I  guess,"  she  said,  yawning. 

"Good-night,  my  dear." 

"Good-night,"  she  said,  and  kissed  me 
sweetly. 

"  I'm  so  disappointed  in  the  book  I  was 
reading,"  she  remarked,  standing  in  the 
doorway.  "It  began  so  beautifully  and 
turned  out  so  sad." 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  I.     "Poor  Charley!" 

"I  think  it  was  mean!"  said  Barbara, 
fiercely.  "He  was  so  young  and  hand- 
some, and  everybody  loved  him." 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "even  the  yotmg  and 
handsome  are  disappointed  now  and  then." 

We  were  both  silent. 

"Well,"  said  Barbara,  "good-night. 
Uncle  Jerry." 

"Good-night,  my  dear." 

"I  suppose,"  she  added,  still  lingering 
in  the  doorway,  "if  he  had  been  old  I 
shouldn't  have  cared  so  much." 

"Quite  likely,"  I  repHed— "if  he  had 
been  old,  say,  and  uncle-y." 
»  93 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"  I've  noticed  often,"  said  Barbara,  who 
seemed  to  be  lost  in  her  own  half -sleepy 
thoughts,  "that  even  in  the  nice  and  hap- 
py books  the  first  part,  somehow,  always 
seems  the  best." 

"True,"  said  I. 

"But  if  ever  /  write  a  book,"  she  de- 
clared, with  feeling,  "I'll  be  very  careful 
to  scatter  the  young  things — flowers  and 
love-scenes  and  all  like  that — way  to  the 
end.     In  fact — " 

"Yes?" 

"In  fact,"  she  confided,  a  little  self- 
consciously, though  even  that  is  not  un- 
becoming in  so  yoimg  a  girl,  "I  have 
started  one.  Uncle  Jerry." 

"A  book?" 

"Um." 

"A  novel?" 

"Yes.     I've  written  the  first  chapter." 

"In-deed!  and  what  is  it  about?"  I 
asked. 

"I    call    it,"    she    replied — "now   you 
mustn't  laugh.  Uncle  Jerry." 
94 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Never!"  I  swore. 

"Well,  the  name  is — I've  named  it 
Lady  Madelatne's  Secret." 

"A-ah!    And  the  secret?" 

"Well— that's  the  secret.  "It  would 
be  telling,  Uncle  Jerry.  Wait  till  it's 
done.     Oh,  it  has  a  lovely  plot  I" 

"I'll  warrant,"  said  I. 

"It's  a  love-story,'^  my  niece  confessed. 

"Naturally,"  said  I. 

"I — I  didn't  mean,  Uncle  Jerry,  to  crit- 
icise your  story,  but  you  see  you  really 
do  have  to  have  a  plot.  Now  a  love- 
story  is  where  two  persons  fall  in  love 
very  much,  but  somebody — their  parents 
or  their  guardians,  or  maybe  a  rich  old 
relative — well,  anyway,  somebody  or  some- 
thing, won't  let  them.     That's  the  plot." 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  I,  "it  is  now  quite  plain 
to  me." 

"And  a  love-scene,"  my  niece  continued, 
"is  where  they've  slipped  away,  you  know 
— from  a  ball  or  something,  and  meet  on 
the  terrace." 

95 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

'  *  The  terrace, ' '  I  mused — * '  why,of  cotirse,      * 
my  dear." 

"Or  some  other  place  where  roses  are," 
she  told  me. 

"But  wouldn't — wouldn't  strawberries 
do  as  well?" 

"Oh  no,  Uncle  Jerry — strawberries! 
The  idea!" 

"Well,"  I  continued,  "there  are  straw- 
berries and  strawberries." 

"I  know,"  said  Barbara,  "but  roses, 
Uncle  Jerry — " 

"Suppose,"  I  interrupted  her — "sup- 
pose there  were  wild  roses  among  the  straw- 
berries?" 

"  But  they're  not  double,  Uncle  Jerry." 

"No,"  I  admitted,  "they  are  single,  to 
be  sure ;  but  are  the  roses  in  novels  always 
double,  my  dear?" 

Barbara  reflected. 

"All  that  I  ever  read  about,"  she 
said. 

"Well,  then,"  I  declared,  firmly,  "if  I 
ever  write  a  book,   I'll  stick  little  pink 
96 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

single  roses  into  it,  and  strawberries  here 
and  there." 

"The  idea!"  she  laughed.  "How  fun- 
ny! I'm  afraid  you'll  never  make  an 
author." 

"Why  not?"  I  demanded. 

"  Uncle  Jerry,"  she  said,  beaming  upon 
me  indulgently  from  the  topmost  tip  of 
youth,  "you're  a  dear,  but  you're  not  one 
bit  romantic." 

"Mm!"  said  I. 

"And  you  have  to  be  awfully  romantic 
to  be  an  author,  you  know.  Oh,  I  think 
you'll  like  my  book.  Uncle  Jerry." 

"  I  am  sure  of  it,"  I  replied,  warmly. 
"  I  want  to  see  it  the  moment  it  is  done." 

"Well,"  she  said,  softly,  her  eyes  shin- 
ing so  that  I  knew  they  saw  a  terrace 
somewhere,  "good-night,  Uncle  Jerry." 

"Good-night,  my  dear." 

Well,  she  was  right,  that  niece  of  mine. 
There  was  no  plot  to  it — and  without  one 
how  shall  a  man  find  a  story  in  his  love  ? 

When  an  imcle-y  goodman  looks  back- 
97 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

ward  what  does  he  see?  Is  it  a  terrace 
scented  with  double  roses  and  white  with 
moonUght  ?  Does  he  hear  there  the  music 
of  violins? 

Think  of  it  —  only  a  few  pink  single 
roses,  pale  stars  among  the  strawberry 
vines  of  a  country  lane!  Moonlight,  yes 
— and  a  little  music  of  a  quiet  sort :  drowsy 
twittering  of  birds  and  wind  in  tree-tops, 
and,  it  may  be,  a  brook  tinkling.  But 
you  could  not  dance  to  it ;  you  could  only 
stroll  to  it,  mostly  silent,  or  sit  somewhere 
upon  a  stile,  listening. 

One  slip  of  girl,  she  was,  among  a  score 
I  knew,  but  had  about  her  that  which 
made  me  wish  she  would  look  my  way. 
It  all  began  with  a  boy  sharpening  a  girl's 
pencils  for  her  and  handing  them  back  to 
her  across  the  aisle.  The  lane  was  a  short 
cut  home  for  her  after  school,  and  the  long 
way  arotmd  was  the  shortest  way  home — 
for  me. 

They  shook  gray  heads  at  us,  we  were 
so  yotmg.  So,  thanks  to  a  common  peril, 
98 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

they  drove  all  doubt  away.  Comrades  at 
arms  we  were  in  a  noble  cause.  We  un- 
furled love's  banner — two  doves,  I  be- 
lieve, white  upon  an  aziu-e  field;  raised 
our  fair  standard  in  Beecher's  Lane — and 
annexed  the  world.  It  was  a  bloodless 
victory. 

The  town  has  spread  since  Kate  and  I 
walked  in  the  lane  together.  It  is  all 
houses  and  asphalt  now,  and  they  call  it 
Seventh  Street.  Where  all  is  gray,  then 
all  was  green.  Where  sparrows  chatter, 
thrushes  sang.  Where  cows  stood  lowing 
by  the  bars  on  summer  evenings,  children 
play  now  on  the  stone  steps — not  children 
like  the  barefoot  boy  who  was  to  be  a  hero, 
whose  hair  stuck  up  through  a  hole  in  his 
torn  hat,  but  clean,  pretty  little  children, 
shoed  and  stockinged  and  dressed  in  white, 
and  some  with  nursemaids  to  hold  their 
hands  for  them.  Suppose  they  should 
make  mud-pies !  Mary  Ann,  preserve  us ! 
What,  then,  of  those  little  white  suits  ? 
99 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

But  there  is  not  enough  clean,  sweet 
dirt  in  all  Seventh  Street  to  make  a  pie  of 
— a  proper  pie,  my  Barbara,  such  as  they 
baked  in  the  sun  in  Beecher's  Lane.  Oh, 
the  lane-y  pies  were  proper  pies,  I  tell 
you! — pleasant  to  roll,  to  sprinkle,  to 
mark  on  their  upper  crusts  with  the  sign 
of  the  tree,  and  set  in  the  oven  of  the 
summer-time  till  they  were  done.  They 
left  their  traces,  it  is  true,  but  if  you 
played  in  a  green  lane  long  enough  and 
were  not  Called  In,  its  little  winds  were  as 
towels  and  brush  brooms.  Street  dirt 
smuts  and  sticks.  Lane  dirt  dries  and 
crumbles  and  goes  back  to  its  element. 
The  cleanest  dirty  boys  in  all  the  world 
play  in  lanes. 

Now  the  lane  is  gone,  and  they  did  not 
even  preserve  its  name.  Seventh  Street! 
Think  of  the  questions  were  it  still  called 
Beecher's  Lane!  Who  was  this  Beecher 
who  had  a  lane?  Then  some  old  codger 
would  tell  its  tale,  a  bit  of  history  of  a 
bit  of   town — how   yotmg  man    Beecher 

lOO 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

hewed  and  dug  in  the  forest  wilderness, 
and  served  his  God  there,  and  his  coiintry 
and  his  state,  and  raised  his  sons ;  and  how, 
at  last,  old  man  Beecher  would  be  seen 
walking  on  sunny  mornings,  leaning  on 
his  cane,  on  the  paved  and  very  spot 
where  his  cows  had  grazed. 

Pshaw!  He  is  dead  and  gone,  and 
buried,  like  his  lane.  Old  fossil,  I  think 
they  called  him  in  his  later  years — always 
talking  of  how  the  land  lay  when  he  was 
young.  He  had  helped  to  build  a  town, 
it  is  true — ^but  Seventh  Street  is  so  con- 
venient !  It  tells  so  plainly  how  it  runs — 
yes,  between  Sixth  and  Eighth! 

No,  you  would  not  dream,  my  Barbara, 
to  look  at  Seventh  Street,  that  rose  and 
strawberry  vines  had  ever  blossomed  there ; 
nor  do  you  dream  that  youth  once  blos- 
somed in  the  heart,  say,  of  an  uncle-y 
goodman. 

The  sun  still  rises  and  bums  there  all 
day  long  in  Seventh  Street,  but  without 
a  pie  to  bake;  the  moon  still  shines  and 

lOI 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

lovers  pass  there  on  the  stone  walks  be- 
neath the  maples,  mumbling  lest  you 
catch  some  word  of  the  old  story.  It  was 
all  different  when  the  turf  was  soft  and 
the  thrushes  sang  and  only  the  night  winds 
passed  you  with  the  scent  of  woods  and 
meadows  and  the  sound  of  leaves. 

Hill-sides,  long  since  levelled,  then  star- 
red with  daisies,  hid  the  world  of  men, 
and  two  could  walk  there  in  the  world  of 
God,  where  love  grows  wild  as  any  flower. 
Young  hearts  find  each  other  quickest  in 
a  lane.  There  simple  words  seem  best, 
and  even  silence  has  a  voice  when  two  are 
listening. 

First,  I  remember,  it  was  as  March  there, 
and  all  uncertainty — ^now  blast  of  winter, 
now  breath  of  spring;  then  a  kind  of — 
April,  with  violets  and  rue  anemones  where 
the  snow  had  been.  How  shall  one  say 
the  hour  when  they  bloomed  ?  And  with- 
out the  hour  and  word  and  plot,  how,  in- 
deed, shall  one  make  the.  love-scenes  ? 

I  cannot  remember — I  cannot  remem- 

I02 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

ber  the  words  we  spoke,  we  have  spoken 
so  many  since.  I  do  remember  sitting  on 
a  stile,  and  a  frock  Kate  wore,  white,  and 
sprinkled  blue  with  some — I  think,  for- 
get-me-nots. It  hit  me  rarely,  I  remem- 
ber, it  was  woven  so  of  May.  Ever  since 
I  have  liked  the  gowns  that  school-girls 
wear. 

The  stile  was  in  the  lane-side  wall.  An 
oak  shaded  it,  and  behind  it  the  brook 
sang  in  a  little  glen,  the  stones  of  the  ford 
stringing  a  harp  for  the  running  waters. 
Birds !  Why,  the  woods  were  full  of  them 
— and  flowers !  there  are  not  so  many  any 
more. 

There  was  a  long  hill  there,  waist-deep 
with  black-eyed — ^what  do  you  call  them  ? 
— Susans;  and  then  again  with  purple  as- 
ters and  golden-rod.  In  early  spring  the 
banks  of  the  rivulet  were  yellow  with 
adder's-tongues,  and  we  found  arbutus,  I 
remember,  under  the  dead  leaves  and  the 
last  March  snows. 

Thank  God,  I  fell  in  love  in  the  cotmtry ! 
103 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

It  is  pleasant  for  a  man  in  town  to  look 
backward  and  see  himself  sitting  on  a 
stile  in  a  lane,  and  smell  again  flowers 
and  trees  and  hear  a  brook  whimpering. 

Sitting  was  pleasantest  at  the  stile,  but 
the  lane's  far  end  was  the  most  beautiful. 
First,  from  the  stile,  the  cart  tracks 
mounted  gently  into  the  very  sky,  and 
there  at  evening,  over  that  little  hill,  the 
Sim  went  down  the  lane  on  the  other  side, 
followed  slowly  by  the  after-glow.  Then 
as  you  watched  you  would  see  the  hedge- 
rows at  the  top  blossoming  with  stars. 

Oh,  the  lane  was  fair  enough  at  the 
stile,  and  at  the  hill-top,  as  I  say,  was  still 
more  beautiful,  but  beyond,  at  its  farthest 
end,  I  mean — where  it  could  not  be  seen 
from  the  stile  at  all — we  knew  it  was  love- 
liest. There  it  was  a  prouder  thorough- 
fare. There,  even  as  I  sat  with  Kate, 
with  the  singing  brook  behind  us,  there 
at  the  lane's  far  end  I  saw  her  leaning 
back  grandly  among  the  carriage  cushions, 
and  all  glistening  with  silk  and  lace,  her 
104 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

cheeks  like  cream  and  rose-leaves,  and 
wonderful  for  kisses  if  one  dared! — and 
saw  myself  sitting  beside  her  in  a  white 
vest  toying  with  a  gold-headed  cane,  and 
ornaments — oiir  own! — upon  the  mantel- 
shelf! 

For  even  as  we  haunted  you,  little  lane, 
speaking  doubtless  of  flowers  and  spring, 
with  their  scent  about  us,  even  as  we  told 
each  other  how  rich  we  were — richer,  we 
vowed,  than  the  little  girl  grown  tall  and 
princess-like  in  her  great,  green  square — 
we  were  thinking  silently  of  the  lane's  far 
end,  where  by  some  means  golden  and 
silken  and  I  know  not  what  we  would  find 
happiness,  counting  the  big,  round,  mint- 
ed days  with  a  pleasant  chinking. 

"When  we  get  rich  .  .  ."  we  said  some- 
times. 

"When  our  ship  comes  in,"  we  told 
each  other,  "we  shall  do  this,  and  that." 

Our  eyes  never  were  so  bright — you, 
little  lane,  never  were  so  beautiful  with 
gloaming  and  spring-time  as  when  we 
105 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

planned  there  what  we  would  have  some 
day :  more  life  than  our  fathers  and  moth- 
ers had,  dwelling  so  plainly;  more  noise 
than  they,  more  laughter,  more  nods  and 
smiles  and  hats  Hfted  to  us  in  the  brave, 
bright  world  outside — more  love  within 
than  two  folk  sitting,  faded,  in  faded  chairs 
beside  a  fire. 

Such  is  the  magic  of  lanes  when  love  is 
yoimg,  such  is  their  rare  atmosphere,  you 
see  beyond  you  years  and  years — and 
trample  beneath  your  feet  the  pink  wild 
roses  Gk)d  grows  for  you  in  your  own 
spring-time,  as  you  smell  in  fancy  the 
hot-house  ones  you  will  grow  yourself 
when  your  summer  comes. 


XIII 


ITTLE  more  than  a  girl  Kate 
was  that  rainy  Thursday  when 
the  sun  came  out  at  noon, 
brightening  the  drowsy  little 
church  which  we  had  wakened 
from  its  mid-week  slumbers. 
We  had  just  stepped  in  a  moment,  I  re- 
member— on  our  way  from  the  berries 
of  Beecher's  Lane  to  the  lilacs  of  Chaffinch 
Street. 

Then,  on  a  Sabbath  morning  with  its 
sound  of  bells,  she  tied  on  a  gingham  apron 
and  took  down  the  old  blue  china  from 
the  pantry  shelf,  and  set  a  table  in  a  room 
of  windows  looking  upon  a  bit  of  garden 
where  a  boy  once  wondered,  would  they 
make  him  dig  ?j 

I  poked  the  fire  for  her  and  filled  the 
107 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

pail  and  pitcher  at  the  well,  and  stood, 
now  here,  now  there,  idle,  hovering  aim- 
lessly, watching  her  cheeks  reddening  in 
the  kitchen  glow. 

"And  can't  I  help?"  I  asked. 

"You  might  bring  a  plate,"  she  said 

"What  kind  of  a  plate?" 

"A  plate  for  the  toast." 

So  I  brought  her  one. 

"Oh,  that's  too  small." 

So  I  brought  another. 

"Oh  no,  Jerry,  not  a  platter — a  plate." 

"  I  know,"  said  I,  "but  I  thought  a  plat- 
ter might  be  better,"  and  brought  a  third, 
at  which  she  smiled. 

"  Isn't  it  right  ?"  I  asked. 

"Oh  yes,"  she  said,  "it  will  do  nicely," 
and  beamed  upon  me.  How  was  I  to 
know  ?  It  was  round  and  had  little  sides 
to  it,  to  keep  the  toast  from  sliding.  Let 
her  tell  her  tale.  She  cannot  prove 
anything.  The  thing  was  broken  long 
ago. 

"Jerry,"  she  said,  peering  into  cup- 
io8 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

boards,  "  do  you  know  where  your  mother 
kept  the  toasting-fork?" 

"The  toasting-fork?  Why,  I  think— 
let  me  see — the  toasting-fork," 

"Maybe  she  used  a  rack,"  said  Kate. 

"A  rack,  yes;  it  was  a  rack.  Isn't  it 
beneath  the  sink?" 

"No,  it  wouldn't  be  there.  That's  the 
kettle  place." 

"Or  in  the  cupboard  by  the  stairs?" 

"No;  I've  looked." 

"The  toasting-rack,  the  toasting-rack," 
I  repeated,  vaguely — then,  like  a  flash, 
remembered  the  very  nail  on  which  it 
hung.     I  had  driven  it  myself. 

"A  little  lower  down,  my  son,"  she  had 
told  me.  "I'm  not  so  reachful  as  I  used 
to  be." 

"What  a  queer  place  for  it,"  said  my 
wife.  "  I  think  we'll  keep  it  there  in  the 
other  cupboard." 

"Mother  always  kept  it  here,"  said  I. 

The  door  was  open.  Outside  in  the 
simny  garden,  with  its  prim  little  rows  of 

8  109 


THE    FLOWER    OF*  YOUTH 

green,  and  its  currant  and  gooseberry  bush- 
es and  grape-vines  over  against  the  fence, 
the  birds  were  busy  in  their  nests.  We 
were  building  ours  under  the  old  roof -tree. 

"Think  of  it,  Jerry!"  said  my  wife. 
"Our  first  toast  is  on  the  fire!" 

A  pleasant  steaming  rose  then  near  the 
chimney,  and  our  first  coffee  scented  the 
smoke-stained  room.  I  had  never  much 
heeded  it,  but  now  it  seemed  to  me  a 
cheerful  sort  of  place  to  work  in.  There 
were  morning-glories  by  the  doorway. 
A  vagrant  apple-bough,  changing  its  mind 
three  times,  was  now  making  for  the  win- 
dow-sill as  fast  as  its  twigs  could  carry  it 
— ^for  the  very  sill  where  mother  cooled 
her  pies. 

"See!"  said  I. 

"Yes,"  said  Kate.  "Your  mother  told 
me  once — '  Kate,'  she  said, '  I  worked  there 
years  and  years  by  that  kitchen  window 
in  the  blazing  sun,  when  the  tree  was  a 
little  thing,  but  it's  cool  and  lovely  now — 
for  you,  my  dear.'" 

no 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

Kate  turned  her  face  from  me.  She 
was  always  such  a  soft-hearted  Httle  thing, 

"I'll  call  your  father,  Jerry,"  she  said. 

He  was  in  the  garden,  a  lonely  figure 
in  a  knitted  jacket,  smoking  and  thinking 
in  the  Sabbath  glow.  Now  he  pulled  a 
leaf  from  the  gooseberry  vines  or  bent 
stiffly  to  uproot  a  weed;  then  walked 
slowly  in  the  pathway,  his  hands  behind 
him,  his  eyes  downcast,  or  stood  quite 
motionless,  gazing  upward  and  away  as 
if  the  sky  there  held  some  fairness  he  had 
never  seen  before. 

Kate  stood  a  moment  in  the  doorway. 

"Come,  father,"  she  called. 

He  came  quietly,  knocking  the  ashes 
from  his  pipe. 

"The  currants  will  be  fine  this  year," 
he  said,  and  as  he  entered  slipped  one 
arm  about  her  waist.  His  lips  were  grave, 
but  his  eyes  smiled  lovingly  upon  my  bride. 
And  so  we  sat  down  together — an  oldish 
man  in  a  knitted  jacket  and  his  two  chil- 
dren who  had  promised  to  be  always  young. 
Ill 


XIV 


UMMER  mornings  I  hurried  from 
our  little  world  down  three  gray 
steps  and  a  gravelled  pathway 
edged  with  pinks  into  the  great 
world  roaring  with  wheels  and 
men;  at  the  comer  turned  and 
waved  my  hand,  and  all  daylong  in  crowded 
streets  and  above  my  desk  a  face  smiled  at 
me.  Evenings  I  hurried  back  between  the 
pinks  and  up  those  three  gray  steps  again 
to  the  porch  where  honeysuckles  clung,  and 
seized  the  mottled,  marble-y  knob  in  the 
white  door,  just  as  when  a  boy  I  came  in 
flushed  from  play,  but  knowing  now  that 
close  behind  it  I  should  find  a  face  upturn- 
ed. And  so,  watched  for  every  evening, 
I  would  come  from  the  great  world  where 

112 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

I  was  to  be  a  hero  to  the  little  world  where 
I  was  already  one. 

On  a  golden  evening  I  have  taken 
that  waiting  face  between  my  hands  and 
said, 

"What  do  you  think?" 

"What?" 

"Guess." 

"I  can't  guess." 

"What  the  manager  said." 

"Jerry,  what  did  he  say?" 

"What  might  he  say?" 

"Tell  me!" 

"  What  would  you  like  him  to  say  ?" 

"Jerry— MO./" 

"Yes.  Two  dollars  more!  He  told 
me  to-night.  Two  dollars  more  a  week, 
Katie!     Darlin',  we'll  get  on  yet," 

Then  I  would  tell  her  how  he  told  me, 
just  where  he  stood  when  he  did  it,  just 
how  he  looked,  smiled,  lighted  his  cigar, 
and  left  me  to  carry  home  my  joy. 

"  We'll  get  on  yet,  Katie"— this  through 
the  suds.  ..."  And,  mind,  if  Culver  is  ever 
113 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

head  of  the  firm" — that  through  the  towel. 
"Then—" 

"Oh,  the  steak!"  my  Kate  would  cry, 
and  be  off  kitchenward. 

"Just  wait,  Katie,"  I  would  call  after 
her.  "  There'll  be  some  one  to  broil  your 
steak  for  you  one  of  these  days." 

"  When  we  get  rich  we  will  have  a  beau- 
tiful little  kitchen,"  she  would  tell  me, 
her  face  radiant  as  she  washed  the  dishes 
while  I  toiled  manfully  at  her  side.  "All 
tiled,  white  and  blue,  and  with  pots  and 
kettles,  copper  and  shining,  on  the  wall, 
and  a  little  white  porcelain  sink  to  wash 
my  dishes  in." 

"But  you  won't  wash  dishes  then." 

"True,"  she  said,  almost  regretfully  at 
the  thought  of  the  little  white  sink  she 
would  never  use.  "  I  forgot.  That's  the 
trouble  with  getting  rich:  you  can  make 
work  beautiful  then  if  you  wish,  but  you 
won't  want  to  work." 

"  You  can  play  then,  all  day  long.  Wash 
on,  Katie,"  I  would  cry — "did  you  rinse 
114 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

these  cups?  Wash  on,  Cinderella.  Cul- 
ver is  bound  to  be  president  one  of  these 
days." 

"One  of  these  days,  Katie,"  I  used  to 
tell  her  when  the  dishes  were  put  away 
and  I  had  her  all  to  myself  again,  and 
we  stood  in  the  windows  looking  at  that 
big  house,  pompous  and  frowning,  across 
the  way,  and  without  a  blink  for  us — "  one 
of  these  days,  I'll  come  home  to  you 
through  a  big  gateway,  in  a  big  carriage, 
and  instead  of  this  gingham  you'll  be  wear- 
ing an  all-white  lace  andfurbelowy  gown." 

"I  saw  the  Princess  this  afternoon," 
she  would  tell  me.  "All  in  pale -blue 
silk  she  was,  and  wore  a  great  black  hat 
with  snow-white  plumes.  Oh,  she  is  beau- 
tiful!" 

"Just  wait,  my  dear.  Culver  is  sure 
to  win,  and  then  ..." 

"Meanwhile,"  she  would  tell  me  softly, 
with  her  cheek  laid  close  to  mine,  "we 
will  be  happy  here." 

Yes,  meanwhile  —  meanwhile,  till  we 
115 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

were  rich  enough  to  buy  the  new  things, 
we  would  make  the  old  ones  do.  Mean- 
while the  old  little  gray -blue  house  would 
fairly  shelter  us  till  we  built  our  new  one 
in  a  great,  green  square ;  the  old  blue  china 
would  do  to  eat  from  in  the  dining-room, 
the  old  fruit-pictures  could  hang  there  a 
little  longer,  and  here  in  the  library  we 
could  use,  for  the  time  being,  the  old  pome- 
granate chairs. 

Meanwhile  evenings  we  sat  in  this  very 
room,  three  of  us,  father  and  Kate  and  I 
— everything  made  for  words,  nothing  too 
trivial  for  our  little  narratives,  our  little 
arguments,  our  little  jests.  Meanwhile 
Kate  sat  sewing  there,  there  father  with 
his  pipe  and  book,  and  here  myself. 
Meanwhile  the  clock  ticked  upon  the  shelf, 
the  fire  spluttered  upon  the  hearth  when 
it  was  cold,  and  there  outside  lay  the 
great  world  and  its  joys  and  sorrows  of 
which  we  told  each  other  —  forgotten 
words,  fleeting  as  the  moments  in  which 
we  uttered  them. 

ii6 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

Meanwhile  the  stars  ghmmered  and  the 
moon  shone  for  us.  Meanwhile  the  sun 
rose,  day  after  day,  over  the  house-tops  in 
Chaffinch  Street ;  over  the  pear-trees,  morn 
after  morning  came  to  us,  sweet-breathed 
and  rosy  as  ever  in  the  world  before. 

"Yes,"  we  said,  "for  the  present,  it  will 
do." 


XV 


ND  so  meanwhile,"  I  said  aloud 
— half  to  myself  I  said  it,  half 
to  a  mother  with  a  little  boy's 
arms  about  her  and  his  cheek 
pressed  close  to  hers. 

"Meanwhile,"  I  said  again. 
It  was  only  a  photograph  in  a  gilt  frame, 
standing  so  near  me  on  the  table  among 
the  books  that  I  had  but  to  turn  my 
head  a  little  to  find  Kate's  eyes  and 
Jamie's  looking  into  mine. 

"  You  rogue,"  said  I,  myself  half  smiling. 
Jamie,  there,  was  still  in  curls,  though 
already  he  had  worn  a  sword.  The  pict- 
ured Kate  was  so  plainly  proud  of  him, 
her  eyes  shone  so  with  ownership,  her  lips 
drooped  so  -with  a  sweet  hopelessness  of 
ever  smiling  half  her  heart's  delight — 
ii8 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"  Do  you  think,"  I  mused,  for  as  I  look- 
ed at  her  she  seemed  almost  to  be  there 
beside  me,  "that  you  were  ever  one-half 
so  beautiful  in  the  lane  ?" 

"Dear-heart,"  I  murmured. 

Once  I  had  thought  a  boy's  love  so  much 
more  gentle  than  a  man's  could  be,  had 
thought  myself  a  wondrous  lover  in  the 
lane  with  a  simimer's  evening  to  prompt 
my  wooing — it  is  so  easy  to  be  kind  where 
flowers  are  and  birds  and  brooks  are  sing- 
ing. So  it  is  easy  to  make  a  story  of  the 
lane-love ;  you  make  it  chiefly  of  the  lane. 

"Dear-heart,"  I  said,  and  as  I  gazed  at 
her,  remembering,  the  lane-trysts  seemed 
no  more  to  me  than  a  little  moonlight  and 
a  dream  or  two,  and  a  good  many  rustling 
leaves. 

The  gray -blue  house  was  made  for  chil- 
dren. It  was  just  little  enough  and  viney, 
and  having  once  mothered  a  boy  who  was 
to  be  a  hero,  it  was  never  itself  again  till 
it  grandmothered  one.  Then  there  were 
love-scenes  with  three  true-lovers  in  them — 
119 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

rare  in  fiction  but  common  enough  in  fact 
— and  when  there  were  only  two,  they 
were  always  waiting  for  the  third  to  come 
to  them. 

"My  two  children,"  I  used  to  call  them 
when  we  all  played  together,  for  Kate  was 
always  such  a  child  herself,  though  twenty- 
three! —  an  age  so  monstrous  that  she 
sighed  prettily  for  her  lost  youth,  coimt- 
ing  one  gray  hair  and  imnimibered 
brown. 

The  happier  her  thoughts  were,  the 
more  like  a  child  she  spoke  them.  Often, 
evenings,  I  would  hear  a  mumbling  kitch- 
en ward  and  wonder  who  had  come. 
Then  if  I  listened,  or  tiptoed  down  the 
hallway,  I  would  hear,  perhaps,  spoken 
as  a  child  would  say  it — 

"Fee-fy-fo-fum!" 

— all  to  herself,  those  magic  words  at 
which  Care  vanished  like  a  cloud,  and  lo! 
before  her,  there  stood  a  geni  called  Con- 
tent. To  those  like  Kate,  who  recall  it 
lovingly,  childhood  is  a  fairy  wand.     The 

I20 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

bitterest  lips  dare  not  repeat  its  rhymes 
lest  they  smile,  remembering. 

So  Kate  would  sit  on  the  three  gray 
steps  in  Chaffinch  Street  with  Jamie  and 
the  Pidgeon  boys — who,  counting  girls, 
were  seven — matching  doggerel  and  dol- 
ing cookies:  roimd,  sugared  memories, 
one  bite  of  which  restores  one's  youth. 

There  I  would  find  her  sometimes  when 
I  came  from  work,  and  there  evenings  we 
would  sit  awhile,  long  after  Jamie  had 
gone  to  bed,  listening  to  the  older  chil- 
dren playing  in  Chaffinch  Street — tag, 
pull-away,  and  once,  to  our  surprise,  fol- 
low-your-leader  over  Kate's  pansies,  ex- 
plaining that  you  could  not  be  expected 
to  see  such  bits  of  things  by  dark. 

At  nine  o'clock  there  was  a  sound  of 
calling  from  the  porches,  a  noise  of  run- 
ning here  and  lingering  there,  in  the  street ; 
then  like  a  flock  of  sparrows  they  were 
gone.  Sometimes  we  talked  then,  some- 
times were  silent.  If  we  talked  less  of 
poetry  than  in  the  lane,  there  was  more  of 

121 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

it  in  what  we  said,  for  now  it  seemed  to 
us  that  even  the  common  words  were 
lighted  by  a  kind  of  glow — a  glow  most 
golden  when  we  talked  of  Jamie. 

"We  must  be  careful,  Kate.  We  are 
always  talking  of  that  boy  up-stairs." 

"Yes — dear  little  soul — we  must  re- 
member that  others  are  not  so  interested 
in  our  son.  You  should  have  seen  him 
to-day  when  I  brushed  his  hair." 

"What  did  he  dor 

"  Oh,  nothing — only  he  looked  so  sweet." 

"And  we  must  teach  him,  Kate,  that 
he  is  only  a  child.  He  must  not  expect 
to  be  always  in  the  centre  of  the  stage, 
you  know." 

"No,  of  course  not." 

"Children  can  be  intolerable  nuisances 
to  guests." 

"Yes,  we  must  be  careful  of  that." 

"  It  will  be  hard,  Kate,  of  course — he's 
such  a  jolly  little  fellow." 

"Isn't  he  a  darling?" 

**  That's  just  it.     He  is  so  much  prettier 

122 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

and  brighter  than  other  children,  we  must 
be  doubly  careful." 

"And  he  is  so  cunning,  Jerry." 

"  I  know,  but  you  must  guard  yourself 
— guard  yourself,  my  dear.  All  day  long 
you  have  him  on  your  mind,  and  when 
night  comes  with  callers  you  must  try  to 
remember  not  to — " 

"Jerry  Down,  who  was  it  began  to  talk 
of  him  last  night  when  the  Pidgeons  came  ? 
I  made  it  a  special  point  not  to  say  *  Jamie ' 
once,  till  you — " 

"Oh,  well,  last  night,  of  course;  they 
were  neighbors,  and,  besides,  Mrs.  Pid- 
geon  was  talking  of  children  and  I  hap- 
pened to — " 

"Of  course  you  did.  You  happened 
to  remember  Jamie." 

"Tut!  You  were  just  waiting  for  me 
to  remember." 

"Why,  Jerry  Down,  I—" 

"You  know  you  were." 

"Jerry!" 

"Katie!" 

123 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Well?" 

"Well?" 

So  we  would  warn  ourselves  against  the 
wiles  of  the  Other  Lover  asleep  up-stairs 
lest  he  lead  us  into  devious  ways  by  his 
too  much  smiling.  And  there,  but  two 
of  three,  on  the  porch  in  those  summer 
nights,  the  love-scenes  seemed  to  lack, 
somehow — to  need — ah  well,  dear  Bar- 
bara, it  was  as  if  you  were  to  write  a 
love-scene  with  a  terrace  in  it  and  forgot 
the  roses. 

He  had  made,  as  it  were,  a  kind  of  plot 
for  our  little  story — something  to  wonder 
at,  something  to  smile  at  in  a  life  all  hum- 
drtun  and  everydays,  with  never  a  secret 
like  Lady  Madelaine's  to  hold  the  interest 
to  the  end.  He  was  even  a  little — what 
did  she  call  it,  that  girl  Barbara  ? — a,  little 
novelish,  to  keep  us  from  yawning  there 
in  the  starlight.  He  gave  us  a  hero  who 
would  go  through  fire — at  the  very  thought 
Kate  shuddered  and  was  always  for  going 
up-stairs  to  tuck  him  in  again — but  he 
124 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

would  emerge,  we  vowed,  like  any  other 
hero,  triumphant  in  the  end. 

Yes,  there  was  plot  and  mystery  now  in 
our  little  love-story ;  and  parts  to  laugh  at, 
and  parts  Kate  called  the  crying  places; 
parts  where  the  hero  smiled  so  winsomely 
Kate  clapped  her  hands;  parts  where  she 
held  her  breath  and  ran  to  rescue  him, 
the  plot  thickening.  Every  day  was  a 
new  chapter;  every  night  Kate  tucked 
him  in,  to  be  continued  in  our  next. 


I  rose.  There,  through  the  windows  in 
the  vines,  beyond  the  curtains,  filmy  and 
limiinous  as  elfin  veils,  I  saw  the  apple- 
boughs  broidering  the  moon-bright  sky, 
whose  stars  were  pale.  I  stood  for  a  long 
time  motionless,  gazing  through  the  panes 
.  ,  .  threw  Barbara's  cape  about  my  shoul- 
ders, unlatched  a  window,  and  seated  my- 
self upon  the  sill. 

The  night  air  mingled  with  the  tobacco 
smoke,  the  scent  of  the  last  apples  in  the 

9  125 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

grass.  All  was  still  save  a  little  wind, 
rising  and  falling  in  the  withered  leaves, 
and  the  flutter  of  startled  wings  in  the 
vines  above  me. 

There  at  arm's  -  length  were  the  lilac 
shrubs;  beyond,  the  pear-tree  with  its 
limb  just  low  enough  for  a  leaping  boy. 
Over  the  way  the  big  house  glowered, 
even  in  moonlight,  in  its  great  square. 


XVI 


AMIE  was  a  red-cheeked  school- 
boy when  our  Princess  came 
through  those  great  iron  gates, 
a  bride.  It  was  a  gala  week  in 
the  green  square.  Those  hun- 
dred windows  blazed  at  night. 
Carriages  rolled  up  the  gravelled  drive- 
way and  out  again.  Carts  lingered  at  the 
tradesmen's  entrance,  stuffed  with  baskets ; 
workmen  slipped  through  the  alley  gate- 
way in  the  morning  and  out  at  night  again 
with  their  bags  of  tools.  The  morning  pa- 
pers were  full  of  tales — the  bride  was  the 
fairest  of  the  city's  daughters,  the  groom 
the  richest,  handsomest  of  its  yoimger  sons. 
Kate's  eyes  widened  as  the  trousseau 
rustled  and  trailed  its  frills  through  half 
a  column  of  the  Herald's  gossip.  With 
127 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

a  girl's  eagerness  she  peeped  cautiously 
from  the  windows  in  the  vines.  There 
were  jewels  sparkling  in  the  very  air! 

On  my  way  from  the  office  I  stepped 
into  Toby's  for  a  meditative  mug  of  ale. 
It  was  a  dusky  comer  where  I  sat  in  the 
old  chop-house.  A  picture  hung  upon 
the  wall — stage-coach,  fox-hunt,  or  win- 
ner of  some  Derby:  I've  forgotten  which 
—  fly  -  specked  and  stained  by  time. 
Through  a  haze  of  cigar  smoke  I  watched 
the  drinkers  at  the  tables,  the  aproned 
waiters  flitting  by  like  ghosts ;  listened  to 
the  drone  of  voices,  gusts  of  hoarse 
laughter,  splutter  of  chops  grilling  on 
the  fire,  and  the  clashing  of  pewter  cups. 

The  door  burst  open.  A  whiff  of  June 
wind  stirred  the  blue  smoke  into  lazy 
eddies  and  touched  my  brow  with  its 
coolness,  so  that  I  turned  my  head. 

A  young  stranger  strode,  laughing,  into 

the  room — six  feet  of  stalwart  manhood 

crowned   by   a   fine,    well-chiselled    head, 

the  face  blooming  with  health  and  care- 

128 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

less  youth.  There  was  a  welcoming 
voice— "Chelsea!" 

Like  a  flash  I  thought  of  those  cheeks 
like  cream  and  rose-leaves,  and  wonderful 
for  kisses  if  one — 

This,  then,  was  the  man  who  dared! 

A  judge  made  room  for  him;  a  white- 
bearded  colonel  offered  a  vise-like  hand; 
a  banker  nodded — that  whole  round  table 
beamed  upon  him,  and  men  at  the  other 
tables  turned  their  heads.  Waiters  hur- 
ried to  his  side — two  took  his  stick,  a 
third  his  hat,  as  he  bowed  familiarly  to 
left  and  right,  smiled,  seated  himself, 
tossed  off  his  ale,  I  told  myself,  as  a  young 
viking  his  horn  of  mead,  and  straightway, 
easily,  like  one  confident  and  so  forgetful 
of  his  place  and  power,  fell  to  chatting 
with  his  older  friends. 

His  voice  rose  clearly  from  his  deep- 
welled  chest,  his  every  pose,  his  every 
gesture,  his  every  glance,  glowing  with 
life,  were  such  I  could  not  take  my  eyes 
from  him.  I  watched  with  a  pang  of 
129 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

envy  in  my  heart.     The  young  gods  were 
not  dead. 

"Ay,  look!  Look  long  and  well,  poor 
Jerry  Down,"  said  a  still,  small  voice, 
"for  that,  indeed,  is  young  Captain  Chel- 
sea you  hear  of  every  day.  A  million  if 
he  has  a  penny — governor's  aide — looks 
like  the  hero  of  an  historical  novel  in  his 
blue  uniform — could  be  your  mayor  if  he 
would,  they  say — the  best  horseman  in 
the  state — plays  polo,  golf — muscles  like 
steel — hunts  big  game  in  the  Rockies,  Ind- 
ian jungles,  African  plains — rowed,  you  re- 
member (or  did  when  you  had  red  blood) 
at  Yale  in  that  famous  year — known,  is 
Chelsea,  in  a  dozen  capitals — speaks  half 
as  many  tongues — loved,  doubtless,  by  a 
dozen  girls  as  fair  as  your  golden  Princess 
who  has  given  him  her  hand !  Jerry  Down 
—  Jack  Chelsea.  Jack  Chelsea  —  Jerry 
Down." 

So  rattled  on  that  still,  small  voice,  of 
mine,  mockingly.     I  stared  the  harder  at 
that  young  Adonis  there — 
130 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"If  Captain  Chelsea,"  I  told  myself, 
"had  been  bom  plain  Jerry  Down — " 

There  was  a  roar  of  laughter. 

"Capital!"  said  the  colonel. 

'  *  Good !    Good !' '  rumbled  the  judge. 

The  captain  smiled,  spoke  rapidly  to 
the  waiter  hovering  about  his  chair — spoke 
in  French,  so  that  the  waite?  grinned  and 
scraped,  tickled  to  hear  his  native  tongue 
again. 

"If  I  had  been  bom  to  millions — and 
opportunity — and  gifts  of  God,"  I  mused. 

The  captain  drank,  lifting  his  cup,  as 
all  men  must  who  drink — lifting  it,  ah! 
but  not  as  other  men. 

My  heart  sank,  sank  to  the  very  bottom, 
but  rose — rose! — rose  again,  remember- 
ing the  hero  I  had  meant  to  be.  I  felt 
the  warm  blood  moimting  to  my  cheek ! — 
shook  myself  free — smiled — pushed  back 
my  frayed  cuffs — straightened  my  bent 
shoulders — opened  my  cramped  lungs  to 
a  long,  full,  heartsome  breath — threw  my 
head  higher  in  the  air,  and  crossed  my 
131 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

spindle  legs.  Then,  with  what  little  grace 
I  fain  could  muster,  I  laid  my  hand  to 
my  pewter  mug,  minded  to  quaff  as  jaimt- 
ily  as  any  Chelsea  ever  dared — laid  my 
thin,  trembling  hand,  I  say,  to  my  brim- 
ming cup,  and — 

Spilled  the  brown  liquor  on  my  very 
knees ! 

— then  listened  humbly  to  that  still, 
small  voice  again. 


XVII 


£L_£L 


FTER  the  honeymoon  Captain 
Chelsea  and  his  bride  came  back 
to  Chaffinch  Street  to  dwell  while 
BTTTI  he  built  her  a  fairer  palace  in  a 
^SkB^  newer  quarter  of  the  town.  We 
saw  them  often,  riding  together 
—  the  Princess,  as  we  still  called  her, 
pink-cheeked  and  beautiful  in  her  simple 
habit,  the  captain  graceful  as  a  cavalier. 
Sometimes  they  cantered  by  me  on  golden 
mornings  as  I  walked  down  -  town,  so 
near  that  I  stopped  on  the  crossing  to 
let  them  pass.  Only  a  little  fresh,  sweet 
air  lay  cool  between  us — yet  then,  near 
as  she  was  to  me,  she  seemed  more  dis- 
tant than  when  a  boy  I  watched  her  pass- 
ing, a  vision  on  a  little  seat  I  thought 
a  hassock,  come  like  a  fairy  through 
^33 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

those  great  iron  gates  and  like  a  fairy 
gone. 

Now  as  she  rode  away,  blithe  and  with- 
out a  care  but  her  own  fairness,  I  would 
think  of  a  woman  clearing  a  table  of  its 
blue  cups.  We  were  still  young,  I  told  my- 
self. What  other  men  had  done  for  their 
loves  I,  in  time,  would  do  for  mine — ^yet, 
even  as  I  vowed  it,  wondered  doubtfully  if 
life  would  be  for  me  what  I  had  planned. 
Where  was  the  first  stone  of  that  bigger 
house  I  was  to  build  for  her  ?  Where  even 
was  the  first  grass-blade  of  that  new 
green  square? 

"Face  the  truth,  Jerry,"  I  told  myself. 
"  You  are  nothing  but  a  common,  every- 
day sort  of  fellow,  after  all  your  dreaming. 
Take  your  medicine.    Smile,  man — smile !" 

I  did,  but  it  must  have  been  a  pitiful 
sort  of  thing.  My  neighbor  Pidgeon  saw 
it,  I  remember,  and  was  concerned. 

"What  is  the  matter,  Down?"  he  asked, 
clapping  me  upon  the  shoulder.  "Any- 
body dead?" 

134 


THE    FLOWER   OF    YOUTH 

"Yes." 

"Who?" 

"A — a  hero,"  I  said. 

"A  what?"  said  he. 

"A  hero,  I  tell  you.  Look  here,  Pidg- 
eon,  don't  be  frivolous;  and  remember 
this:  if  a  man  looks  like  a  gravestone  he 
is  pretty  apt  to  be  burying  something, 
even  though  it's  only  a  little  piece  of  his 
own  heart." 

Pidgeon  looked  at  me. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said.  "I 
really  do." 

"We  have  each  other,  Jerry,"  Kate 
would  tell  me,  "and  we  have  Jamie." 
Her  eyes  were  bright  for  me,  her  voice 
tender;  but  sometimes  that  very  gentle- 
ness made  me  more  wistful  than  before. 

"Poets  need  words  for  their  love,"  I 
said  to  her.  "An  ordinary  man,  some- 
how, needs  sticks  and  stones  for  his. 
Katie,  I  would  build  you  an  epic  three 
stories  high  with  a  perfect  sonnet  of  a 
tower!" 

135 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Then  this  old,  Httle  house  must  be  a 
love-song — and  sweet  enough,"  was  her 
reply.  She  said  it  as  a  girl,  as  Barbara 
would  have  said  it,  her  eyes  dancing.  All 
her  life  she  has  had  that  way  of  saying 
things,  things  bright  enough  to  put  in  a 
story,  but  with  only  her  husband  to  listen 
and  smile  at  them  and  forget.  So,  often, 
in  a  quiet  woman's  eyes  I  see  a  twinkling 
so  eloquent  I  feel  quite  sure  there  must 
be  words  to  it  as  bright  that  she  is  saving 
to  say  when  she  is  home  again. 

The  world  was  full  of  things  I  longed  to 
give  her — great,  double  roses,  as  it  were, 
my  Barbara — music  and  holidays  and 
strange,  new  scenes  and  gowns  to  wear, 

"Humpf!"  I  sniffed,  as  some  proud 
heiress  swept  from  a  shop  to  her  waiting 
carriage  at  the  curb-stone.  "  If  you,  now, 
were  one-half  so  lovely  as  my  Kate  would 
be  in  your  fine  flounces!" 

"  But  it  isn't  gowns  I  need  to.be  happy, 
Jerry,"  she  would  tell  me. 

"I  know,  my  dear,  but  you  would  be 
136 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

just  as  happy  if  you  did  have  them,  would 
you  not?" 

"  I  think,"  she  said  once,  "  I  should  be 
happier  wearing  them  for  you  than  for 
myself." 

"Katie,  Katie,"  I  replied,  "that's  just 
the  worst  of  it!" 

"The  worst?"  she  said. 

"The  very  worst.  If  only,  somehow, 
you  could  manage  to  be  less  deserving, 
my  dearest  dear." 

Over  her  sewing  in  the  lamplight's 
yellow  glow  I  saw  a  woman's  face  still 
yoimg  and  fair.  There  were  no  wrinkles, 
no  crow's-feet  yet.  Her  lips  were  red, 
her  cheeks  still  round,  her  eyes  still  ra- 
diant, her  step  still  blithe  as  ever  in  the 
lane,  it  seemed  to  me — yet  now  and  then, 
when  her  long  day's  work  was  done,  I 
thought  I  saw  the  Older  Woman's  face 
coming  in  that  younger  one. 

Then  I  would  think  jealously  of  that 
broom  lurking  behind  the  door,  of  those 
kettles  hanging  on  the  wall,  and  that 
137 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

shining  china  on  the  cupboard  shelf. 
Silly,  kitchen  things  they  had  always 
seemed  to  me,  yet  now  I  knew  them  for 
what  they  were — for,  day  by  day,  year 
by  year,  and  all  so  subtly  I  would  scarcely 
dream  it,  they  would  be  stealing  a  wom- 
an's bloom  away. 

Often  I  took  the  needle  from  her  very 
fingers,  pressed  their  rough  tips  in  mine 
with  an  old  tenderness — 

"  Dear  one,  you've  worked  enough  this 
day." 

"I  ought—" 

"  Yes,  you  ought  to  play  awhile." 

And  it  was  wonderful  how  like  a  girl's 
her  face  grew  rosy  on  our  holidays — so 
like  that  other  woman's  face  I  saw  in  pass- 
ing on  golden  mornings  that  I  would  cry, 

"  Kate,  you  are  lovelier  than  the  Prin- 
cess!" 

Then  it  would  come  to  me  how  like  a 
flower  she  would  go  on  blooming — defy- 
ing, even  as  the  Princess,  Time  himself — 
if  only  I  could  keep  her  always  in  the  sun. 
138 


XVIII 


ND  there  was  Jamie,  that  other 
star-eyed  one  of  lovers  three — 
hardy,  red -cheeked,  perennial, 
and  coming  up  so  fast,  Kate 
said,  she  could  almost  see  him 
growing.  Soon  he  would  need 
a  self  -  made  man  for  father,  if  half  his 
dreams  came  true. 

He  was  to  go  to  college;  but  "first, 
father" —  or  so  he  told  me,  his  face  shin- 
ing while  I  trimmed  my  cuffs,  he  was  to 
have  a  pony:  a  spotted,  circus  one  with 
long  white  mane  and  tail;  and  a  saddle, 
and  a  little  whip,  and  a  yellow  tie  like 
Harry  Pidgeon's,  and  a  gun  —  oh  yes,  a 
gim !  Then  he  would  go  a-hunting  in  the 
country  where  Aunt  Phoebe  lived.  He 
would  leave  in  the  morning  and  get  to  Pine- 
139 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

ville  after  dusk ;  and  Aunt  Phoebe  would 
have  a  big,  hot  supper  all  waiting  for  him, 
and  be  surprised  how  he  had  grown.  Then 
he  wotdd  rise  early,  when  the  roosters 
crowed,  and  eat  pancakes  in  the  kitchen, 
and  stuff  sandwiches  into  the  pockets  of 
his  coat,  and  be  gone.  And  the  first  morn- 
ing he  would  shoot,  he  said,  "three  rab- 
bits and  a  squirrel,  father,"  then  eat  his 
sandwiches  on  a  log,  and  shoot  a  wood- 
chuck  that  afternoon — and  be  home  by- 
six. 

What  human  father  could  spoil  a  dream 
like  that? 

Already  pony-time  was  drawing  nigh. 
I  thought  surely  to  be  ready  for  it,  but  it 
came  so  suddenly,  or  so  it  seemed  to  me. 
There  had  been  no  promise,  it  is  true — 
only  a  sort  of  wistfulness  on  Jamie's  part 
and  hopefulness  on  mine.  No  word  was 
broken,  yet  I  could  not  help  seeing  the 
Other  Lover's  face  as  it  might  have  been. 

"Ponies,"   he  said,    as  if  by  accident, 
"cost  a  good  deal,  father." 
140 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Yes,"  I  said. 

"Especially  to  keep  them,"  he  con- 
tinued. 

"Funny,"  he  said  again,  for  I  was 
silent.  "  Funny,  isn't  it,  that  such  little 
horses  should  eat  so  much?" 

"Oh,  not  so  singular,"  I  replied,  "when 
you  think  how  boys,  sometimes,  eat  twice 
as  much  as  men." 

"  I  guess  my  legs  are  hollow,"  the  Other 
Lover  said. 

"Father,"  he  went  on,  after  another 
silence,  "do  they  ever  have  second-hand 
ones?" 

"Ones?" 

"Ponies." 

"Yes." 
-     "Well,    they — they    wouldn't    cost    so 
much  now,  would  they?" 

"Oh,  sometimes  more,"  I  said. 

"  But  a  second  -  hand  saddle,  father, 
wouldn't  cost  so  much?" 

"No,"    I   replied,   and  glanced   up   at 
him  so  curiously  that  his  face  flushed. 
le  141 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"I  was  just  a-asking,"  he  assured  me, 
adding,  "  'Cause  now,  of  course  you — ^we 
couldn't — ^be  any  room  for  him  here;  but 
in  the  country,  if  we  lived  there,  father, 
we  might,  mightn't  we?" 

"Ah,  yes,  in  the  coimtry,  son,  I  think 
we  might,"  I  said. 

"  If  only  I  could  see  my  way  to  do  it," 
I  told  Kate  afterward,  but  she  shook  her 
head. 

"We  might  scrimp  a  little  closer,  I 
suppose,"  I  said. 

"There  are  so  many  things  you  need 
yourself,  Jerry,"  she  replied,  and  began 
to  talk  of  a  winter  coat,  though  I  had 
one  then  I  had  worn  four  years. 

"And  good  for  another  two,"  I  as- 
sured her.  "The  best  investment  I  ever 
made." 

"  Jerry,"  she  cried,  "  I  shall  never,  never 
mend  that  worn-out  thing  again." 

"It  would  be  fine  exercise,"  I  con- 
tinued. 

"Mending!"  she  cried. 
142 


THE    FLOWER   OF    YOUTH 

"Riding,"  I  said.  "It  would  develop 
him." 

"I  know,  Jerry,  but — " 

"And  teach  him  grace  and  courage," 
I  went  on,  warming  to  my  theme.  "It 
would  send  the  red  blood  tingling." 

"It  tingles  now  when  he  plays,"  she 
told  me.     "  You  should  see  his  red  cheeks." 

"I  do,"  I  said. 

I  did.  I  saw  them  then  behind  a  toss- 
ing mane. 

"Besides,"  I  heard,  "it  would  cost  so 
much  to  keep  one." 

Kate  came  and  put  her  head  against  my 
cheek. 

"We  shall  need  so  many  little  things," 
she  said.  "Really,  you  must  put  it  out 
of  your  head,  my  dear." 

I  did.  I  put  it  there  where  so  many 
things  were  going,  where  all  those  shining 
gowns  of  hers  were  hanging — those  I  had 
meant  to  buy  for  her  long  before  pony- 
time.  I  put  it  there  in  a  kind  of  stall, 
but  without  a  halter  —  so  that  if  better 

143 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

days    should   chance   to  come  to  me  it 
might  more  freely  amble  out  again. 


The  wind  had  risen.  A  mist  had  floated 
across  the  moon.  I  had  a  mind  to  seek 
my  chair  again,  but  the  lamps  of  a  car- 
riage shining  a  moment  in  the  gateway 
opposite  caught  my  eyes  and  drew  them 
to  that  great  house-shadow  in  the  square. 

Then  as  I  gazed,  with  something  of 
pony-time  still  lingering  in  my  thoughts, 
it  came  to  me  how  that  self -same  shadow 
had  lain  always  across  my  pathway :  first 
on  my  childhood,  a  faint  reflection  of  a 
thing  to  wonder  at  as  I  stood  peering 
through  the  fence ;  then  on  my  youth,  lying 
as  lightly  there  as  though  of  clouds  to  which 
my  dreams  went  soaring;  then  on  my 
manhood,  phantom-like,  reminding  me  of 
how  those  dreams  had  vanished  with  the 
years. 

Yet  now  I  smiled  at  it,  a  little  sadly, 
thinking  of  how  it  lengthened  to  my  very 
144 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

threshold,  darkening  love  itself  awhile — 
days  when  I  toiled,  and  unremittingly  as 
the  self-made  men  had  said,  yet  was  not 
one  of  them — hours  when  I  gazed  back 
wistfully  to  the  lane  to  find  it  greener 
there  than  I  had  thought  before. 

Kate  never  spoke  of  those  old  lane 
promises — nor  seemed  ever  to  have  even 
heard  them.  Every  evening  when  I  came 
from  work  her  face  shone  for  me  as  if  I 
were  the  hero  I  had  meant  to  be — and  I 
was  hero  to  little  Jamie. 

I  leaned  my  head  against  the  casement. 

"  To  think,"  I  said,  gazing  at  that  great, 
black  symbol  of  the  wealth  I  had  not  won, 
I  ever  let  you  hide  the  sun  from  me!" 

Yet  it  was  only  for  a  little  while. 

One  day  that  great  house  stood  there, 
towering  above  my  little  one  scarce  higher 
than  the  lilacs ;  here  in  its  shadow,  lovers 
three — man,  wife,  and  little  playing  boy 
— one  day  in  pony-time ;  the  very  next .  .  . 

I  rose  quickly  from  the  window-seat. 
Pacing  that  room  of  books  and  memories, 

145 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

it  all  came  back  to  me — how,  swiftly,  from 
the  very  skies,  that  other  darkness  fell 
without  a  warning,  blotting  forever  that 
puny  shadow  of  a  heap  of  stones. 

Stones  and  mortar,  oh,  my  Jamie !  For 
as  you  lay  there,  white  and  still  among  the 
flowers,  your  father,  staring  through  the 
windows  in  the  vines,  beheld  that  miracle : 
stones  and  mortar  where  had  been  a  palace 
yesterday. 


XIX 


HE  wind  had  fallen.  I  stood 
again,  watching  the  stars  in  the 
pear-trees  and  thinking  of  the 
stillness.  Strange!  what  a  si- 
lence a  little  child  leaves  be- 
hind him,  and  all  unbroken  as 
long  as  he  is  gone. 

Look  in  the  garden:  you  will  see  no 
hyacinths — their  scent  stifles  me;  you 
will  find  red  roses  but  no  white  ones  there 
— and  if  there  were  Kate  could  not  see 
them  long,  for  memories. 

That  day  we — we  who  had  been  so  rich, 
yet  did  not  know  till  we  were  poor — that 
day  we  were  dumb  who  had  always  known 
so  many  words  for  love,  who  foimd  grief 
lonely  though  our  cheeks  were  wet  with 
each  other's  tears — that  day  there  came 
147 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

from  the  big  house  opposite  a  wreath  of 
hHes.  We  took  them,  wondering;  but 
on  the  morrow,  a  mocking  morning  when 
all  the  world  ran  on  without  us,  two  lit- 
tle white  hearses  passed  out  of  Chaffinch 
Street — one  from  a  wooden,  one  from  a 
great  iron  gate  .  .  . 


"Father!" 

Was  I  dreaming? 

"Father!" 

I  turned  with  out-stretched  arms.  Kate 
and  my  two  boys,  Bert  and  Leslie,  were 
home  again. 


PART    II 

IN    THE    SUN 


UNDAY:  Kate  left  for  Pineville 
yesterday. 

"Go,"    I    had    said,    twenty 
times  if   I  said  it  once,   "and 
stay  a  month,  my  dear.     You 
are  tired.     It  will  do  you  good 
to  be  rid  of  us  awhile." 

"Yes,  go.  Aunt  Kate,"  said  Barbara, 
who  is  again  a  daughter  to  us.  "I  will 
be  mother  to  the  boys." 

Yet  it  took  us  fourteen  days  to  make 
up  her  mind  for  her,  and  she  left  at  dusk, 
still  doubtful,  in  a  flurry  of  farewells.  The 
telegram  came  this  morning  at  breakfast- 
time. 

"Arrived  safely,"  it  ran.  " Send  if  you 
need  me — Kate." 

"Just  like  the  girl,"  I  said.     "'If  we 
151 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

need  her!'     As  if  we  couldn't  run  the 
house  ourselves — eh,  Barbara?" 

My  niece,  who  was  pouring  the  coffee 
with  a  prim  but  unsteady  hand,  smiled 
reassuringly. 

"We'll  show  her,"  said  I,  "that  the 
authoress  of  Lady  Bombazine's  Secret — " 

"Lady  Bombazine!"  cried  my  niece,  in- 
dignantly.    * '  Madelaine. ' ' 

"Ah,  yes — Madelaine,  my  dear.  I  for- 
got." 

"Oh,  dear,"  said  Barbara,  "and  so  did 
L" 

"What?" 

"  You  only  take  one  sugar,  Uncle 
Jerry." 

"  I'll  drink  it,  Barbara,"  said  Bert. 

"Indeed,"  I  interposed,  "you'll  do 
nothing  of  the  sort,  yoimg  man.  Coffee 
at  your  age!  Ridiculous!  What  would 
your  mother  say?" 

"  She  lets  me  have  it — doesn't  she,  Les- 
Ke?" 

"Why,  Bert!"  said  Barbara. 
152 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"  She  does,  too !  Mother  often  gives  me 
coffee." 

"0-oh!"  drawled  my  niece. 

"  Often  ?"  I  asked.     "  How  often  ?" 

"  Why,  every  once  in  a  while,  fa- 
ther." 

"Thanksgiving  and  Christmas,"  said 
Barbara. 

"And  other  days,  too,"  cried  my  son, 
hotly.  "I  guess  I  know.  Miss  Barbara 
Burton.     You  needn't  think  you — " 

"Boys!"  I  commanded. 

"/  didn't  thay  anything,  father,"  pro- 
tested my  littler  son. 

"Bert"— I  corrected  myself.  "Didn't 
mother  tell  you  to  mind  Barbara?" 

"Yes,  but  she  didn't  say  that  I  couldn't 
have  any — " 

"  Silence !"  I  commanded.  "  What's  that 
you're  mumbling,  sir?" 

"I  was  talking  to  Barbara." 

"Then  speak  aloud.  Barbara  is  right. 
Yet  I  do  remember  that  you  had  coffee 
one  Sunday  not  long  ago.  Still — this  is 
153 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

no  way  to  ask  for  it.     I've  a  good  mind 
not  to  let  you  have  it  at  all." 

"Why,  Uncle  Jerry!"  protested  Bar- 
bara. 

"Don't  give  him  a  full  cup,"  I  said, 
sternly.  "He  doesn't  deserve  it.  Half 
will  do." 

"  But,  Uncle—" 

"Put  in  three  sugars,  Barbara,"  said 
my  son.  He  had  cooled  and  was  again 
most  amiable,  yet  I  could  not  dismiss  the 
matter  without  some  final  stress  on  my 
reproof. 

"The  idea,"  I  reminded  him,  "of  a  boy 
your  age  quarrelling  at  table!" 

"/  didn't  quarrel,  father,  did  I?"  said 
my  other,  my  righteous  little  son. 

"No,  Leslie,"  I  replied,  warmly,  "you 
did  not ;  and  just  to  reward  you,  Barbara 
may  put  some  coffee — just  a  taste  now — 
just  enough  to  color  it — in  your  milk,  my 
boy." 

Breakfast   went   more   smoothly   after 
that.     A  little  firmness  in  the  nick  of  time, 
154 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

as  I  tell  Kate,  is  the  secret  of  good  disci- 
pline. Children  are  managed  easily  enough 
if  one  but  knows — the  way. 

Barbara,  somehow,  while  I  was  reading 
in  the  garden,  got  the  two  boys  clean  and 
starched  for  Sunday-school,  and  tied  their 
ties  for  them.  They  went  as  usual  by  way 
of  my  right  vest-pocket,  from  which  I  doled 
ten  radiant  pennies,  hoarded — religiously 
is  the  very  word — through  the  week.  I 
watched  them  as  they  left  the  gate.  Two 
finer  lads — well,  as  I  say,  I  saw  them  go,  Bert 
head  and  shoulders  above  the  little  chap. 

At  noon  they  had  not  returned! 

"Maybe  they  are  at  the  Pidgeons'," 
said  Barbara. 

They  were  not  next  door. 

"  Perhaps  they  walked  home  with  the 
minister,  Uncle  Jerry." 

I  thought  backward  till  I  had  got  as 
far  as  the  time  when  an  xmcle-y  goodman 
was,  say,  a  cousinly  bad  boy. 

"No,"  I  said,  firmly,  "they  would  not 
have  done  that." 

155 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"They  did  once,"  my  niece  asserted. 

"Are  you  sure,  Barbara?" 

"They  said  so." 

"Km,"  I  replied.  "Had  they  come 
home  late  that  Sxmday?" 

"Mm — rather  late." 

"So  I  suspected.  Still,  we  might  try 
the  minister." 

Now  the  Pidgeons  have  a  telephone — it 
is  a  neighborly  way  they  have — but  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Lemon  had  seen  neither  hide  nor 
hair — or,  to  speak  precisely,  really  had 
not  "  observed  either  of  the  dear  children, 
but  let  us  hope  they  are  safe  from  harm." 

Barbara,  much  agitated,  put  on  her  hat. 
She  ran  over  to  the  chiirch  itself,  a  matter 
of  ten  short  blocks  or  so — formerly  but 
nine,  before  the  Butterfields  put  up  barbed 
wire.     The  edifice  was  empty. 

"What  shall  we  do.  Uncle  Jerry?  It's 
— dinner-time." 

She  was  out  of  breath. 

"Do?"   said   I,   gazing  at  her  flushed 
cheeks.     "Dine,"  said  I. 
156 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"  But,  Uncle  Jerry,  suppose — " 

"  Barbara,"  I  replied,  calmly,  as  we  went 
in  together,  "were  you  never  a  boy?" 

"  Uncle  Jerry,  I'm  so  anxious,  and  Aunt 
Kate  away." 

"That,"  I  replied,  "is  probably  the 
explanation." 

"Oh,  you  think— " 

"Um-hm,"  said  I. 

"Think  what.  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"Why,"  I  said,  "it's  simple  enough. 
These  young  rap — sons  of  mine  have  taken 
a  long  cut  home." 

"Oh,  I  hope  so,"  she  replied,  fervently. 
"Why,  Uncle  Jerry,  if  anything  should 
happen  to  them — " 

"Never  fear,"  I  replied.  "Something 
will  happen  to  them,  my  dear." 

"You  won't  hurt  them,  Uncle  Jerry. 
Please  don't  hurt  them." 

I  took  up  the  carver  with  a  firm  grasp. 

"Barbara,"  said  I,  "this  is  no  time  for 
weakness.  They  shall  be  treated  as  they 
deserve." 

"  157 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

For  a  moment  she  was  silent. 

"Still,  they  may  have  an  excuse,  you 
know." 

"Doubtless,"  I  replied,  "they  will  pre- 
sent one.     We  shall  listen  to  it." 

"  I  mean,  it  may  be  a  good  one,  Uncle 
Jerry." 

"Time,"  said  I,  "will  tell." 

We  were  silent  again. 

"They  are  usually  such  good  boys. 
Uncle  Jerry." 

"Usually,"  I  replied. 

"And  they  do  try  to  do  what's  right — 
and  are  so  affectionate." 

"True,"  said  I. 

"And  are  kind  to  animals." 

"Oh,  very." 

We  ate  quietly. 

"I — I  shotddn't  mind  so  much,  Uncle 
Jerry,  if  it  weren't  for  that  dreadful 
creek." 

"Creek!" 

' '  Yes ' '  —  shuddering — ' '  where   they're 
always  getting  d-drowned." 
158 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Good  Lord!"  said  I,  laying  down  my 
knife.  "You  don't  for  a  minute  sup- 
pose— " 

"No,"  she  replied.  "They  promised 
Aimt  Kate  never  to  go  near  it  unless  you 
were  along.  They  would  keep  their  word, 
Uncle  Jerry." 

"They  are  usually  such  good  boys," 
I  said. 

"Oh  yes,"  she  assured  me. 

"And  they  do  try  to  do  what's  right," 
I  went  on. 

"Oh  yes.  Uncle  Jerry." 

"Yet,  by  George,"  said  I,  "I—" 

"Oh,  I'm  sure  they  wouldn't  go  near 
it,"  said  my  niece. 

"Still—"  I  said. 

"  That's  just  it,"  she  replied,  but  added, 
hopefully,  "  Oh  no,  they  wouldn't  go  near 
it.  Don't  worry.  Uncle  Jerry.  It's  a 
lovely  place." 

"But,"  said  I,  "it's  a  long  way  off." 

"It  is  pretty  far,"  she  assented,  "and 
oh,  it's  so  grassy  there  where  they  swim — 
159 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

grassy  and  sweet-smelling  and  butterflies 
all  around,  and  the  clear  water  and  all — 
you're  not  eating,  Uncle  Jerry." 

**  Oh  yes,  I  am,"  I  replied,  more  heartily. 

"It  makes  you  want  to  swim  just  to 
look  at  it — even  if  you're  a  girl,"  my 
niece  ran  on.  She  was  doing  her  cheerful 
best. 

"But  the  boys  can't  swim  a  stroke!"  I 
cried. 

"No,"  she  said.  "That  was  the  way 
with  the  Jeffrey  boy." 

"You  mean  the  one  that — " 

"Yes;  his  foot  caught  in  the  weeds  or 
something — but  you're  not  half  through. 
Uncle  Jerry.     There's  going  to  be  pie." 

"No,  thanks,"  I  said,  rolling  my  nap- 
kin.    "I— I  think  I'll  just—" 

"There!"  cried  Barbara,  so  suddenly, 
so  sharply  I  fairly  leaped  from  my  seat. 
"There  they  come,  Uncle  Jerry." 

"W- where?"  I  gasped — ^but  the  next 
moment  heaved  a  great  sigh  of  thankful- 
ness, for  they  were  alone  and  came  on  their 
i6o 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

own  little,  spindling  legs,  those  boys  of 
mine.  Those  two  rapscallions  came  up 
the  very  steps  I  used  to  climb — came, 
hand-in-hand,  with  mud-sweet  faces,  and 
on  their  once-black  Stinday  shoes  were 
the  stains  of  just  such  boggy  pools  as  frogs 
live  in,  and  in  their  best  black  Sunday 
suits  I  saw  the  claw-prints  of  those  barbs 
and  brambles  that  lie  in  wait  for  you  in 
country  lanes. 

"  Well,  well,  yoimg  men,"  I  said,  hoarse- 
ly, clearing  my  throat.  "  Where  have  you 
been?" 

"Oh,  father,  we  know  a  bully  place  to 
get  water-cress." 

"Well,"  said  I,  still  trembling  with  my 
— wrath.  "Do  you  know  what  time  it 
is?" 

"  It  was  longer  than  we  thought,  father," 
said  my  son,  sweetly.  "And,  gee,  father, 
I  'most  fell  in." 

"Fell  in!" 

"Didn't  I,  Leslie?" 

"Yeth,  he  motht  fell  in." 
i6i 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"The  creek,  do  you  mean?" 

"Yes,  we— " 

"Didn't  your  mother  tell  you  not  to 
go  near  that — " 

"We  didn't,  father.  We  just  went  in 
the  meadows,  and  the  first  we  knew  the 
creek  came  right  aroimd  to  where  we 
were  picking  water-cress.  Didn't  it,  Les- 
He?" 

"Yeth,"  said  Leslie,  still  holding  his 
brother's  hand — and  burst  into  tears.  It 
is  very  hard  to  be  tired  and  muddy. 

"Well,  I  wouldn't  cry  about  it,"  I 
said. 

"And  an  awful  big  snake  came,  father 
— ^big  as  a  boy-constrictor.  Didn't  he, 
Leslie?" 

"  Yeth— a— a  awful—" 

Now  a  harmless  garter-snake  will  raise 
my  hair,  and  the  bare  thought  of  those 
two  defenceless  boys  of  mine  with  a  snake 
and  a  creek  wriggling  at  their  very  heels 
while  they  bent  innocently  in  the  meadow 
grass  for  water-cress ! 
162 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Don't  cry,"  I  said.  "You  — you 
haven't  had  anything  to  eat,  I  suppose?" 

"No,  father." 

They  brightened  visibly  beneath  their 
meadow-tan. 

"Well,  well,"  said  I,  sternly,  "you  don't 
expect — just  look  at  yourselves! — you 
can't  come  to  the  table  all  mucky  like 
that,  you  know." 

"Come,"  said  Barbara,  poimcing  upon 
them. 

Then  I  remembered  I  was  a  father. 

"Why,  say,"  I  cried,  for  she  was  spirit- 
ing them  up  the  staircase.  "I  say,  you 
two — look  here!  What  the  devil  do  you 
mean  by — " 

"0-oh,  father!"  gasped  my  son  Leslie, 
levelling  a  bandit  finger  over  the  banister. 
"  You  thaid  devil .'" 

Well—? 


II 


M 


I 


ONDAY:  A  letter  came  this 
morning.  The  folks  are  well, 
Kate  says,  and  Helen  has  grown 
almost  as  tall  as  Barbara. 

"...  write  and  tell  me  just 
how  you  are  getting  on  without 
me,  and  if  you  need  me  do  not  hesitate  to 
send.  When  I  ran  away  I  forgot  to  tell 
Barbara  that  the  darned  stockings  are  in 
the  upper  left-hand  drawer  of  the  walnut 
bureau — the  boys'  blue-and-white-striped 
waists  are  for  Sunday,  mind  —  don't  let 
them  wear  them  in  the  dirt — and,  Jerry 
dear,  do  be  careful  that  the  boys  don't  tire 
the  Pidgeons,  and  don't  let  them  get  the 
better  of  you  (you  know  your  weakness!). 
Let  them  have  good  times,  certainly,  and 
kiss  them  for  their  mother — bless  their 
164 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

little  hearts,  how  I  wish  I  could  see  them, 
and  you,  too,  you — " 

And  so  on.  Kate  writes  the  confound- 
edest  filigree  hand — no  periods  to  speak  of, 
either;  capitals  where  she  stops  for  breath. 
Still,  it  doesn't  much  matter;  the  oftener 
you  read  her  letters  the  more  you  find 
there,  overlooked  —  the  sweetest  grapes 
hang  hidden  in  the  vines. 

"  P.  S. — I  don't  mean  that  I  want  you 
to  be  stem  with  them,  but  just  keep  them 
safely  in  bounds,  you  know.  Tell  them 
mother  says  they  must  be  good  boys  and 
mind  Barbara — (and  not  pull  the  wool 
over  father's  eyes!).  Dearest,  on  second 
thought,  you  need  not  tell  them  that. 
You  should  hear  brother  George  talk  about 
Pickwick!" 

"  Boys,"  said  I,  as  I  started  down-town 
this  morning.  "  Remember  now.  Mother 
says  you  must  mind  Barbara." 

"Yes,  father." 

"And   don't  be  nmning  over  to   the 
Pidgeons'  all  the  time." 
165 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"No,  father." 

They  are  good  boys,  both  of  them.  I 
left  them  playing  Wild  West — a  breezy, 
virile  sort  of  game,  and  looks  more  men- 
acing than  it  is;  for  I  noted  carefully  ere 
I  left  the  street  that  in  breaking  broncos 
they  fairly  cleared  Kate's  flower-beds. 

To-night,  tired  with  being  good,  they 
went  to  bed,  and  Barbara,  weaiy  with 
much  watchfulness,  retired  early  to  her 
room,  leaving  me  to  my  small  brown  fate — 
curve  stemmed,  well  bottomed,  and  crack- 
ed pleasantly  with  fire  and  time  on  the 
thumb  side  of  the  brier  bowl. 

"Now,"  said  I,  lighting  and  settling 
myself  more  deeply  in  my  chair,  "if  Kate 
were  here — " 

For  it  is  wonderful  how  attached  to  his 
wife  a  man  becomes  when  she  is  eighty 
miles  away.  Or,  rather,  I  mean,  it  is 
wonderful  how  a  man  attached  to  his 
wife  becomes — now,  I  was  not  lonely.  I 
do  not  mean  that  exactly,  for  I — rather, 
it  was  like  this: 

i66 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

There  opposite  was  the  little  low  rocker 
she  had  always  sat  in  to  sew  and  listen  to 
my  reading  after  the  children  had  gone 
to  bed.  Even  if  I  read  to  myself,  I  knew 
she  was  there — and  there  is  something  in 
that. 

No,  I  was  not  what  you  call  lonely. 
She  had  only  been  gone  two  days.  Let 
me  see:  just  forty -nine  hours  and  thirty- 
three  minutes  by  my  father's  clock  since 
we  waved  good-bye  to  her — thirty-ow^ 
minutes,  to  be  exact,  for  her  train  was 
two  minutes  late.  Now  forty-nine  hours 
are  a  long  space  of  time  when  you  come 
to  think  of  it — a  married  man  lighting 
your  pipe — and  thirty-one  minutes  more 
do  not  help  matters. 

"Oh,  well,"  I  said,  and  reopened  Pick- 
wick for  the  hundredth  hour  of  delight. 
After  Jamie  went  away  we  fell,  somehow, 
to  looking  at  the  books  my  father  left 
me,  old-fashioned  things — Dickens,  Scott, 
Shakespeare,  and  the  like  —  which  had 
stood  there  long  neglected  on  our  shelves. 
167 


THE    FLOWER   OF    YOUTH 

We  did  not  open  them  at  once.  We 
thrummed  their  backs  awhile  and  tried 
more  modem  tales  instead  —  splendid 
things  and  bound  most  sweetly,  and  some 
with  heroes  in  them  like  Jack  Chelsea 
champing  their  bits  and  neighing  and 
rearing  valorously,  so  that  we  cried  aloud 
in  our  admiration — and  straightway  mix- 
ed and  forgot  them,  almost  every  one.  I 
cannot  accoimt  for  it,  I  am  sure.  I  am 
not  literary.  They  taught  us  one  thing 
though — that  there  is  no  time  like  the 
past.  What  days  those  were !  And  how 
men  loved  and  fought  and  died — and  what 
lovely  clothes  they  wore!  Barbara,  Bar- 
bara, but  I  knew  myself  for  a  poor,  miser- 
able, whipper-snapper  of  a  fellow — I  did 
not  dream  then  of  even  being  uncle-y — 
and  I  saw  what  humdrum  lives  we  two 
were  leading,  Kate  and  I. 

"Kate,"  I  said,  "I  should  have  been 
my  great  -  great  -  great  -  great  -  great  - 
great-grandfather.     Then,    at    least,    I 
should  have  been  a  man." 
i68 


THE    FLOWER   OP    YOUTH 

Then  we  tried  Pickwick.  A-ah!  Win- 
kle, Tupman,  Snodgrass,  Weller,  Jingle, 
Joe — ^why,  bless  you,  we  cotild  remember 
them! 

"Perhaps,"  said  I,  "it's  because  the 
book  has  such  good  eating,  Katie.  Don't 
you  smell  the  chops,  though,  and  taste 
the  ale  ?  You  fairly  feel  it  run  down  their 
throats  because,  I  suppose,  you  have  felt 
it  sliding  down  your  own ;  and,  in  a  way, 
Kate — in  a  way,  they  were  mostly  ordi- 
nary men." 

After  a  page  of  them  our  own  little  beef- 
steak tasted  better ;  and  when  the  fire  in 
one  of  those  little  inns  blazed  up  in  Mr. 
Dickens's  pages,  by  George,  sir,  oiir  own  lit- 
tle fire  seemed  cosey-like,  with  Kate  sew- 
ing beside  it,  and  laughing,  and  well-nigh 
swallowing  the  pins.  We  came  to  know 
each  other  better  than  before,  so  that  we 
used  to  say  sometimes,  laughingly,  that 
it  was  Mr.  Pickwick  who  had  introduced 
us  all  over  again.  Fancy  the  dear  old 
gentleman,  one  hand  beneath  the  tail  of 
169 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

his  bottle-green  coat  and  the  other  wav- 
ing beneficently : 

"Jerry  Down,  allow  me  to  present  you 
to  your  charming  little  wife,  sir.  Jerry 
—  Kate.  Kate  —  Jerry.  God  bless  you 
both!" 

"Kate,"  said  I,  "that  man  could  have 
made  a  story  out  of  you  and  me." 

Now  I  am  not  sentimental — that  is 
qtiite  plain,  I  think — so  I  don't  mind  con- 
fessing here  that  there  were  moments — 
moments  then  when  I  even  fancied  that 
I,  too,  could  have  drawn  up  a  ledger  ac- 
count of  that  girl  Kate,  beginning,  say, 
with  the  pink  wild  roses  in  the  lane.  It 
is  odd,  but  moments  do  come  like  that — 
when  even  an  ordinary  man  feels  literary. 

We  looked  more  sharply  at  my  father's 
book-shelves  after  that.  From  Pickwick 
to  the  rest  of  Dickens  was  but  pleasant 
stepping  —  say  from  an  auttmm  to  the 
buds  of  spring.  We  felt  all  the  pride  of 
increased  acquaintanceship — mere  char- 
acters, it  is  true,  but  some  of  them  far 
170 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

more  real  to  us  than  flesh-and-blood  ones 
of  the  world  we  knew.  You  cannot  dis- 
miss Mr.  Samivel  Weller  with  a  word — 
and  what  of  Joe? 

Mornings  in  the  car  I  often  nodded  to 
some  kindly  face. 

"A  fine  day,  sir." 

"  It  is,  indeed." 

"Soon  be  leaving  off  overcoats." 

"Yes,  I  saw  a  robin  this  morning." 

Now  from  the  redbreast  to  Mr.  Pick- 
wick may  seem  a  day's  journey,  but  I 
managed  it  pretty  well,  I  fancy. 

"A  robin,"  I  would  observe,  carelessly, 
keeping  my  goal,  however,  steadily  in 
mind,  "is  a  fine  bird  when  you  come  to 
think  of  it." 

"A  very  fine  bird,  indeed,"  doubtless 
would  be  the  amiable  reply;  and  if  my 
comrade's  breakfast  had  gone  well  with 
him,  he  might  even  add — "and  it  is  a 
shame,  sir,  that  they  are  ever  shot." 

In  that  event  my  eye  would  glitter. 

"You  take  the  words  from  my  very 
171 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

mouth.  I  wish,  sir,  from  the  bottom  of 
my  heart,  that  every  robin  hunter  might 
be  as  poor  a  shot  as  our  old  friend  Winkle 
— ha! — ^when  he  shot  at  the  rooks.  It 
makes  me  laugh  every  time  I  think  of  it. 
Winkle,  you  remember — ^but  I  beg  your 
pardon.  Of  course,  you've  read  Pick- 
wick V 

And  in  some  such — graceful  way,  as  it 
were,  we  would  fall  to  Dickensing  delight- 
fully. Now,  if  one  talks  but  long  enough 
on  a  congenial  theme,  one  is  apt,  I  note, 
to  find  fitting  words  for  the  pith  of  the 
matter — some  epigram  or  little  joke,  fa- 
vorite quotation  from  one's  self,  perhaps, 
to  repeat  if  need  be  a  himdred  times.  I 
remember  well  that  I  fell  to  saying  with 
a  little  gesture  that  made  it  seem  more  by- 
the-bye : 

"Mr.  Pickwick  is  a — " 

(For  I  never  could  say  "was"  in  refer- 
ence to  that  immortal  gentleman.) 

"Mr.  Pickwick  is  a  man,  sir — a  natural 
man,  however  extraordinary  he  may  other- 
172 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

wise  appear.  He  eats,  drinks,  sleeps, 
laughs,  gets  mad,  gets  drunk,  sir — like  the 
rest  of  us." 

That  observation,  harmless,  silly  little 
thing,  never  failed  to  win  a  smile  or  good- 
himiored  nod  for  me — never,  I  should  say, 
save  once  when  my  strange  companion 
shook  a  dubious  head.     He  replied,  flatly, 

"  I  cannot  agree  with  you." 

I  was  chagrined,  with  my  little  climax 
ruined  hopelessly. 

"And  why  not?"  I  asked,  flushing,  for  I 
hate  argimient;  and,  after  all,  what  harm 
is  there  in  letting  a  fellow  have  his  way  ? 

"Well,"  said  he,  "I  am  not  prepared 
to  admit  that  a  man  who  gets  drimk  is  a 
natural  man,  sir." 

"But,"  said  I,  "you  know  how  it  is 
yourself.     A  man — " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  but  I  do  not  know 
how  it  is  myself." 

The  fellow  seemed  irritated. 

"Oh,  well,"  said  I,  bridling  in  ttim. 
"Of  course,  if  you  put  it  that  way,  the 
173 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

whole  matter  resolves  itself  into  a  ques- 
tion—" 

"Precisely,"  said  my  companion.  "A 
question." 

"A  question,"  I  repeated,  firmly,  "as 
to  what  is  a  natural  man;  and  the  fact 
that  you  don't  appear  to — er — know  how 
it  is  yourself,  sir,  might  cause  grave 
doubt  in  some  quarters  as  to  your  qualifi- 
cations for  being  considered  a — a  natiiral 
man." 

"Doubt  in  some  quarters!"  he  snapped 
back  at  me.     "What  quarters?" 

'  *  Natural-man  quarters . ' ' 

"Hatmts  of  vice,"  sniffed  the  enraged 
gentleman. 

"Strong  words,"  said  I. 

"Strong  waters,  sir." 

A  man  in  front  of  us  turned  aroimd. 
Now  I  dislike  notice  in  public  places. 

"We  won't  argue,"  said  I. 

"No,"  said  my  seat-mate  —  "no,  we 
won't,  my  friend.  This  is  my  comer.  I 
bid  you  good-day." 

174 


THE    FLOWER   OF   YOUTH 

The  man  who  had  looked  at  us  turned 
again.     He  grinned  gleefully. 

"Sort  of  ruffled  the  dominie,  eh?" 

"The  devil!"  said  I. 

"No,  the  dominie,"  said  he,  "Didn't 
you  know?  That  was  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Lemon  of  the  Emmanuel — " 

"Thunder!"  said  I.  "He  didn't  look 
it." 

"  Or  act  it,  either,"  said  the  man  in  front. 
"  But  you  touched  his  soft  spot.  He's  a 
prohib — " 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  I'm  mightily  sorry.  I 
thought  I  was  talking  to  a — " 

"Natural  man,  eh?" 

"At  any  rate,"  said  I,  "clergymen 
should  be  imiformed." 

To-night  as  I  mused  of  that  little  epi- 
sode, thumbing  Pickwick  for  some  well- 
loved  lines,  it  struck  me  as  the  oddest 
point  of  all  that  a  man  should  be  led  astray 
by  pride  in  his  fatherhood  of  some  such  silly 
little  jest  as  mine  had  been,  to  champion 
a  thing  he  loathes.  Why,  I  was  never 
175 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

drunk  in  my  whole  lifetime! — ^yet  there, 
that  day,  was  I,  Jeremiah  Down,  as  sober 
a  family  man  as  ever  breathed,  brandish- 
ing cudgels  in  defence  of  tippling! 

I  laughed  softly  at  the  memory,  for  in 
turning  the  pages  I  had  come  suddenly 
upon  a  favorite  scene  of  mine.  It  was 
Mr.  Pickwick  sleeping  off  the  fumes  of 
hunt-punch  in  a  wheelbarrow.  Don't  you 
remember  ? 


Ill 


UESDAY  :  We  are  growing  used 
to  it,  this  being  alone,  we  four; 
and  while,  to  be  sure,  there  is 
Yi  Ti  ni  still  that  sense  of  an  absence,  a 
vSB/  vacancy  in  the  little  low  rocker 
— at  the  coffee-pot — in  the  gar- 
den— ^up-stairs — everywhere — ^we  are  quite 
cheerful.  The  boys  are  good,  Barbara  is 
wonderful,  and  I — I  am  too  old  now  not  to 
do  very  well.  What  we  lose  in  years,  I  find, 
we  gain  in  philosophy.  Even  those  dear  to 
us,  I  was  going  to  say,  are  not  so  neces- 
sary. Mind,  I  do  not  say  so ;  I  was  only 
about  to  say  so — a  different  matter.  Days 
I  am  busy  down-town ;  evenings  I  have  my 
young  folks  and  my  pipe  and  books.  I 
am — I  was  about  to  say — content. 

To-night,  for  instance,  I  had  flown  so 
177 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

far  on  the  wings  of  an  old,  old  tale,  Pine- 
ville  was  as  near  as  Chaffinch  Street  for 
aught  I  knew  or  cared. 

"By  George!"  said  I,  softly,  to  myself, 
"there  was  a  man  who  could  write." 

"Who's  that.  Uncle  Jerry?" 

I  had  forgotten  Barbara. 

"Shakespeare,"  said  I. 

"  Oh,"  she  repHed,  "  of  course." 

Now  Kate  once  made  that  same  re- 
ply to  me.  Everybody  says  "of  course" 
about  Shakespeare,  yet  for  years  that  man 
just  squatted  on  my  shelves,  or  stood  on 
one  leg,  then  on  t'other,  elbowed  this  way 
and  jostled  that  on  dusting  days,  and  I 
never  so  much  as  offered  him  my  hand. 
Yet  there  are  some  mighty  pretty  things 
in  Shakespeare — if  you  leave  out  the  notes. 
No  water,  please,  in  mine ;  I  like  the  hon- 
est liquor  better,  and  care  not  if  it  bums 
my  tongue.  You  hear  so  much  of  him  as 
a  school-boy  (we  met,  I  remember,  over 
Caesar's  bier  in  the  Fourth  Reader),  and 
you  grow  to  manhood  with  such  a  quak- 
178 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

ing  class-room  memory  of  a  yard  of  notes 
for  every  foot  of  verse,  that  I,  for  one, 
was  a  little  prejudiced  against  the  fellow. 
But  when  I  stimibled  on  him  one  winter's 
night  and  led  him  to  the  lamp  and  held 
him  off  and  had  a  look  at  him — 

'*  By  George!"  said  I  to  Kate,  I  remem- 
ber, "there  was  a  man  who  could  write. 
Jessica — pretty  name;  nice  name  for  a 
Httle  girl,  eh,  Kate?  Shy  lock  didn't  get 
his  pound  of  flesh,  the  beggar.  Portia — 
listen,  Kate!  —  the  whole  class  used  to 
say: 

"  '  The  quality  of  mercy—' " 

Kate  took  the  pins  out  of  her  mouth. 

'" — is  not  strain 'd. 
It  droppeth — *  " 

and  I'm  blest  if  the  dear  girl  did  not  say 
the  whole  speech  through  without  a  falter. 

"Good,"  said  I;  "when  did  you  learn 
that,  Kate?" 

"In  school,"  she  told  me.  "Our  class 
179 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

gave  the  play  once,  and  I  was  Portia. 
They  all  said— well— " 

"They  all  said  what?"  I  asked,  for 
Kate  sometimes  needs  urging. 

"Said  I  was — awfully  good  as  Portia." 

Her  eyes  had  brightened  at  the  recollec- 
tion. There  was  a  rosy  flush  in  her  pale 
cheeks.  I  smoked  silently.  I  was  won- 
dering how  she  had  looked  as  Portia,  and 
I  remember  it  seemed  a  little  odd  to  me 
that  there  had  ever  been  a  time  when  she 
was  not  mine,  when  her  eyes  had  sparkled 
and  her  lips  had  moved  with  pretty  words 
and  I  not  near  to  hear  them. 

"  So  you  were  Portia?"  I  said. 

"Yes." 

"Who  was — let  me  see — ^who  was  this 
chap  Ba-Bassanio,  in  the  play?" 

"  Tommy  Rogers.  I  haven't  seen  Tom- 
my in  years.  He  runs  a  dry -goods  store 
out  West.  He  did  very  well  as  Bassa- 
mo. 

I  did  not  at  once  say  anything.  I  want- 
ed to  be  sure.  So  I  smoked  quietly  and 
i8o 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

looked  up  certain  little  passages  that  I 
seemed  to  remember,  vaguely,  in  the 
play.  There  was  one  in  particular,  and 
when  I  found  it  I  read  aloud  to  Kate : 

•"A  gentle  scroll — Fair  lady,  by  your  leave; 

(Kissing  her).' " 

"Kate,"  said  I,  "did— did  Tommy 
Rogers — kiss  you — there  in  the  play?" 

"Mm — not  exactly,"  my  wife  replied, 
threading  her  needle. 

' '  Not  exactly !"  I  repeated.  *  *  Just  what 
do  you  mean  by  'not  exactly,'  Katie?" 

"Well,  he—" 

"Out  with  it,"  said  I. 

"  He  made  believe,  or  something." 

"Or  something,  Kate!" 

"  Do  you  think  I  let  boys  kiss  me  when 
I  was  in  school?"  she  asked,  sharply. 

"Well,  then,"  I  replied,  "all  I  have  to 
add,  Katie,  is  this :  that  if  it  is  true,  as  you 
seem  to  indicate,  that  Tommy  Rogers  did 
not  kiss  you — " 

x8i 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

"Don't  you  believe  me?"  she  inquired, 
pertly. 

"If,"  I  repeated,  "Tommy  Rogers  did 
not  kiss  you  then  and  there  as  the  play 
warrants,  Tommy  Rogers  was  a  little  fool." 

"Tommy  Rogers  wasn't  a  little  fool!" 
said  my  wife,  warmly.    * '  He  was  a  nice — " 

"Oh,"  I  cried,  "he  wasn't  a  little  fool, 
then!" 

"  Don't  be  silly,  Jerry,"  my  wife  replied, 
and  in  a  manner  which  seemed  to  indicate 
that  affairs  had  gone  quite  far  enough.  I 
did  not  press  her.  Sometimes  I  think  he 
didn't.  Sometimes  —  well,  I'm  glad  I 
don't  know  Tommy. 

"There's  this  to  be  said  for  Shake- 
speare," I  said  to  Barbara  to-night.  "He 
wrote  as  nicely  about  spring  and  crocuses 
and  little  young  brooks  and  things  as  he 
did  about  lords  and  battles,  and  even  his 
kings  get  gloomy,  Barbara,  like  you  and 
me.  Doesn't  it  strike  you  as  a  little 
strange,"  I  asked,  "that  we  should  feel 
sorry  for  a  king?" 

182 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

She  actually  blinked,  that  romantic 
maid. 

"I  had  never  thought  of  it  that  way, 
Uncle  Jerry,"  she  confessed. 

"So  I  supposed,"  I  responded,  airily. 
"There  was  nothing  uppish  about  Shake- 
speare. Why,  I  suppose  if  he  lived  next 
door,  Barbara,  and  just  dropped  in  of  a 
morning  for  a  dozen  buckwheats,  he'd 
like  as  not  fill  up  his  pipe  from  my  tobac- 
co-jar and  go  home  and  write  as  pretty  a 
quotation  about  those  cakes  as  you'd  ever 
see." 

"Uncle  Jerry!" 

"He  certainly  could  write  quotations, 
my  dear.  I  suppose  he  wrote  more  of 
them  than  any  man  who  ever  lived.  You 
may  find  more  in  the  Bible — ^but  several 
fellows  had  a  hand  in  that." 

"Uncle  Jerry!"  cried  my  niece,  now 
horrified. 

I  strolled,  smoking,  to  the  shelves  and 
laid  my  fingers  fondly  against  those  faded 
backs. 

183 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Blest  if  I  don't  try  Milton  next,"  I 
said. 

(In  a  comer  of  the  highest  shelf,  far 
too  high  for  prying  youth,  I  spied  a  book 
— a  tiny,  green-bound  innocent,  it  seem- 
ed— and  smiled  gently  to  myself.  Of  all 
the  bold-faced — ^why,  if  a  fellow  wrote 
like  that  to-day,  by  George,  sir,  they 
would  tar  and  feather  him.  It  isn't  what 
he  says  so  much  as  what  he  a\-most  says. 
Wonderful,  though,  how  he  could  make  the 
least  thing  interesting.  There  is  a  place 
where  he  meets  an  ass — jackass — in  a  nar- 
row way.  He  can't  get  by,  nor  can  the 
ass,  and  he  tells  what  he  thinks,  and  what 
the  ass  thinks — ^it's  as  good  as  a  play.  But 
the  best  of  all  is  dear  old  Uncle  Toby !) 

"Barbara,"  said  I,  lowering  my  eyes, 
"have  you  ever  read — how  do  you  say  it? 
— ^Vicker  or  Vyker  ?  I  always  said  Vyker 
before  I  knew,  and  it's  hard  to  change. 
The  Vicar  of  Wakefield — ever  read  that?" 

My  niece  declared  it  a  silly  old  thing. 

"A-ah,  Bums!"  said  I,  touching  him 
184 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

lovingly.  "There's  the  poet  of  them  all, 
my  Barbara!  If  you  ever  get  low  in  the 
spirits  and  think  yourself  mighty  poor, 
common  mud  of  a  man,  take  my  advice 
— read  Bums.  He'll  send  you  whistling 
to  the  office,  darlin'." 

"Uncle  Jerry,  what  are  you  saying?" 
my  niece  interposed. 

"  I  forgot  you  were  reading,"  I  replied, 
"but  all  these  books,  my  dear,  your  aunt 
and  I  have  read  together,  and  if  anything 
ever  happens  to  her  or  me,  the  one  who 
is  left  has  only  to  read  them  again  to 
bring  back  happy  times  here  in  this  little 
room.  After  Jamie  went  away  I  was 
down  in  the  mouth,  and  I  didn't  think 
much  of  myself,  but  when  I  found  some 
of  these  fine  old  fellows  here  saying  the 
very  things  I'd  been  preaching — yes,  all 
my  life — the  things  I  had  said  at  the 
office,  the  things  I  had  said  to  Kate,  and  to 
neighbor  Pidgeon  over  the  fence — only, 
of  course,  they  said  them  much  better 
than  I  ever  could — ^why,  just  to  learn  that 
185 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

so  many  great  men,  you  see — er — as  it 
were,  agreed  with  me — Barbara,  it  perked 
me  up  a  bit.  'Jerry,'  said  I,  'you're  not 
such  a  fool  as  some  might  think.  Without 
ever  reading  those  chaps  at  all,  you  feU 
to  thinking  things  out  for  yourself,  and 
the  only  difference,  on  the  whole,  between 
you  and — Shakespeare,  say — was — '" 

"Uncle  Jerry!"  my  niece  protested. 
"There  you  go  again.  You  start  out 
serious,  but  I  never  know  when  you  leave 
off." 

"Girlie,"  said  I,  "did  I  ever  tell  you 
about  the  poem  I  wrote  in  school? — or, 
rather,  I  began  it.  It  was-  never  com- 
pleted." 

"  Can  you  say  it.  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"  I  remember  the  first  words: 

"  '  O  Greece,  thy—* 

That  is  as  far  as  I  ever  got.     I  don't  re- 
call now  whether  the  trouble  was  with 
Greece  or  me,  but,  somehow  or  other,  I 
t86 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

never  finished  it.  Still,  when  you  come 
to  think  of  it,  it  had  about  as  pretty  a 
beginning  as  any  of  Tennyson's.  I  tell 
you,  Barbara,  I've  got  some  splendid 
ideas  if  I  could  only  get  them  down." 

"That's  just  the  trouble  with  me,"  my 
niece  replied.  "I've  thought  out  lovely 
things  for  Lady  Madelaine,  but  somehow 
I  can't  write  them.  Professor  Jenkins 
says  in  class  that  it  isn't  what  you  say 
that  coimts  so  much  in  writing,  it's  how 
you  say  it." 

"  Exactly,"  I  replied.  "  That's  the  great 
difference  between  Shakespeare  and  me." 

"Oh,  Uncle  Jerry!" 

"At  least,"  I  added,  "it's  one  of  the 
differences.  You  see,  while  an  ordinary 
chap  like  me  may  know  a  thing,  it  takes 
a  Shakespeare  kind  of  fellow  to — " 

"  To  say  it  beautifully,"  my  niece  put  in. 

"True,"  said  I.  "And  another  thing, 
Barbara — a-n-n-nother  thing,"  I  stam- 
mered, for  I  was  afraid  the  matter  would 
give  me  the  slip  before  I  could  out  with 
187 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

it,  "is  this,  my  dear:  you  n-never  know 
what  you  do  know  till  you  see  it  all 
written  down  for  you  by  somebody 
else." 

"I  see,"  she  assented. 

"And  so,"  I  cried,  rushing  on  pell-mell 
— for  it's  wonderful  how  the  ideas  come  to 
you,  one  on  the  other's  heels,  while  you're 
talking — "  so,"  said  I,  "we  should  read  the 
great  authors  to  get  acquainted  with  our- 
selves." 

"You  talk  like  Professor  Jenkins,"  said 
my  niece,  thoughtfully. 

"Professor  Jenkins,"  I  replied,  heartily, 
eying  her  over  my  glasses — dear,  serious 
little  thing! — "  Professor  Jenkins  is  a  very 
sensible  man,  my  dear." 

She  shook  her  head  at  me. 

"Uncle  Jerry,  I  don't  know  what's  to 
become  of  you.  You've  been  full  of  the 
Old  Nick  ever  since  morning." 

She  may  have  been  right  about  it.  It 
is  called  the  Old  Nick,  I  know,  in  a  man 
of  my  age ;  but  years  ago  when  I  cut  such 
i88 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

capers  they  called  them  by  a  sweeter 
name. 

Have  you  never  set  out  on  a  fresh,  sweet 
morning,  with  the  air  cool  and  the  sun 
warm  and  your  soul  swelling  like  an  apple 
bud,  and  then  as  your  steps  quickened 
hummed  to  yourself  snatches  of  nothing 
you  ever  heard — tunes  made  up  of  the  mo- 
ment's melody — and  have  you  never  then 
chanted  to  them  fooUsh  words? 

To-day  we  had  such  a  morning,  a  spring 
pattern — birds  and  leaves  on  a  back- 
groimd  of  blue  and  gold — and  as  I  walked 
to  the  office  I  own  I  sang  a  hodge-podge 
to  the  May. 

"Love,  thou  art — thou  art — my  soul  is 
bending  unto  thee-e-e-e — oh,  gentle  one, 
the  wind  is  blowing — come  to  my  heart, 
my  heart,  my  ha -ha -heart,  my  Rosa- 
line .  .  ." 

Now  who  was  Rosaline  ?  I  never  knew 
girl  named  Rosaline.  She  was  the  morn- 
ing— the  white  clouds  scudding  overhead 
—  the  sparrows  twittering  —  the  yellow 
13  189 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

dandelions  in  the  grass-plots — the  breeze 
— the  sun !  And  so  I  carolled  to  her  under 
the  wind,  till  suddenly  it  paused  —  the 
note  was  high — ^my  voice  cracked  pain- 
fully— two  passing  play-boys  grinned  at 
me.     My  song  was  over. 

That  something  then,  that  thing  which 
opened  my  eyes  and  urged  me  townward 
at  a  faster  pace,  which  swelled  in  my  bo- 
som and  burst  into  silly  ditties  to  the 
spring-time,  came  oftener  when  I  was  a 
lad.  It  made  me  run  then,  shout,  leap, 
fight  with  shadows  till  my  face  reddened 
like  the  rose.  Now? — it  makes  a  fool  of 
me.     Rosaline ! 

It  is  a  morning  madness  that  comes  and 
vanishes  like  the  dew.  Sometimes  for  days, 
for  weeks,  it  does  not  come  at  all.  Then 
my  brow  is  furrowed,  my  eyes  a-squint 
with  petty  cares.  But  it  returns  some 
morning  when  I  least  expect  it.  Waiting 
for  muffins,  I  laugh  with  Kate.  I  chal- 
lenge Bert.  I  toss  little,  gurgling  Leslie 
above  my  head.  Youth — ^no,  it  is  the  Old 
190 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

Nick  now,  they  call  it;  once  they  called 
it  by  the  sweeter  name. 

It  came,  as  I  say,  this  very  morning, 
with  a  fooHsh  song, 

"Jerry,"  said  I,  "you  grow  poetical. 
You  are  a  little  lame,  no  doubt,  but,  man, 
you  have  the  spirit  of  the  thing.  You 
have  the  frenzy.  If  only  you  could  keep 
it  glowing  all  day  long — all  through  the 
weeks,  the  years — you,  too,  might  be  a 
Tennyson!" 

I  was  proud  of  that  little  thought,  proud 
of  what  I  might  have  been — if!  I  mused 
more  kindly  of  my  Rosaline,  who  might — 
who  knows? — have  been  immortal  in  a 
lyric — if! 

The  nonsense  pleased  me,  and,  though  I 
laughed  at  it,  straightway  began  to  look 
with  a  new  reverence  upon  the  men  who 
preserved  their  youth  for  us — poets — a 
lot  of  boys,  they  are,  grown  tall  and 
musical,  playing  and  piping  along  the 
road-side  in  the  stm,  dreaming  in  attics 
on  rainy  days. 

191 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

And  so  to-night,  as  I  sat  with  Barbara 
reading,  I  foiind  new  beauty  in  familiar 
lines.     I  said  to  myself: 

"On  a  beautiful  morning  he  thought  of 
that.  I  wonder  was  he  sitting  somewhere 
on  a  stile." 

And  then  again: 

"This  one  smacks  of  a  garden  walk 
imder  stars  and  pear-trees.  That  one 
came  to  him  looking  down  into  a  child's 
bright  eyes." 

Reading  and  musing  thus,  I,  Jerry 
Down,  little  one-horse,  incoherent  poet 
of  a  morning  hour,  author  of  Rosaline — 
reading,  I  say,  and  musing  of  a  mighty 
poet  of  a  lifetime,  singer  of  a  hundred 
lovely  songs,  I  felt  the  breath  of  some 
half-forgotten  spring-time  blowing  upon 
me. 

"And  so,"  I  vowed,  "I'll  go  on  reading 
to  the  end — ^not  to  be  wise — not,  God 
knows,  to  be  literary — but  to  be  young 
again." 


IV 


EDNESDAY:  "Is  it  good?"  I 
asked  them,  for  my  mouth  wa- 
tered. 

"Um,"  was  all  I  could  make 
them  say.  They  were  licking 
the  frosting -pan.  Barbara,  it 
seems,  had  baked  a  cake,  cocoa-nut,  an  old 
favorite  of  mine,  and  while  she  was  for- 
ever stealing  to  the  pantry  door  to  have 
another  look — to  be  quite  sure,  I  suppose, 
that  it  still  cooled  upon  the  sill,  or  that 
its  white  layers  would  bear  up  patiently 
till  time  for  tea — Bert  and  Leslie  scraped 
manfully,  with  two  mighty  spoons,  on  the 
kitchen  steps. 

"Oh,  Uncle  Jerry,  I  hope  it's  good." 
"Never  fear,"  said  I,  "you'll  see;  there 
won't  be  a  smidgen  of  it  left." 

193 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH, 

"But  it's  only  the  third  that  I  ever 
made,"  she  said,  so  tremulously  that  I 
patted  her  cheek  and  repressed  a  smile. 
Mark — I  repressed  it!  Cakes,  baking  or 
eating,  are  no  laughing  matter,  take  an 
old  hand's  word  for  it.  He  is  a  wise  man 
who  knows  when  to  smile  at  one. 

I  learned  my  lesson  long  ago  when  Kate 
first  came  to  Chaffinch  Street.  She  was 
always  such  a  girl  then,  blithe  and  eager 
and  fond  of  little  things.  It  was  half  the 
cake  to  see  her  pride  in  it — ^but  when  it 
fell! — ^when  things  went  wrong  somehow 
with  its  soft  little  middle,  for  which,  it 
seems,  no  remedy  is  known — it  was  well 
then  to  be  soft  with  its  softness,  and  with 
Kate.  I  was  long  discovering  (for  I  am 
a  man)  that  in  the  matter  of  home-made 
cakes  their  worth  lies  less  in  their  sweet- 
and-lightness  than  in  the  hands  that  baked 
them. 

"I  did  it  myself,  Jerry!" 

Dear  child !  Many's  the  time  I  quench- 
ed that  shining  in  her  eyes.  It  seemed 
194 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

more  needftil  to  be  honest,  to  be  witty, 
than  to  be  kind.  Heavens!  Suppose  I 
had  been  too  tender!  No,  I  must  play 
the  man  and  hide  myself  behind  a  jest. 
So  was  I  long  discovering  that  to  a  woman 
belated  praise  is  as  none  at  all. 

Yet  even  man,  when  you  come  to  think 
of  it,  is  a  bit  touchy  when  his  dish  fails. 
In  our  town  once  there  was  a  man  I  knew 
who  ran  for  city  clerk — a  cake  political 
which  promised  well  outside.  But  when 
they  cut  it  on  election  night,  lo !  it  was  all 
doughy  within.  We  did  not  smile  at  him. 
We  said  but  Httle,  and  said  it  kindly,  with- 
out a  touch  of  wit.  He  had  sowed  cigars 
and  reaped  a  smoke  which  dulled  his  eyes 
for  a  twelvemonth.  He  had  followed  the 
recipe — ^but  the  fire,  I  believe  'twas  said, 
had  not  burned  well. 

It  is  wise,  then,  to  like  fallen  cakes,  and 
I  always  do,  literally,  for  they  sometimes 
candify.  To  love  things  not  for  them- 
selves, but  for  those  who  make  them  and 
give  them  lovingly — to  love  each  other  in 
195 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

spite  of  frailties — is,  some  men  think, 
quite  happiness  enough. 

"Is  it  good?"  I  asked — "the  pan,  I 
mean,"  for  the  frosting  seemed  quite 
gone,  yet  they  still  scraped  hopefully. 

"  Um,"  they  said. 

"It  will  spoil  your  appetites,"  I  sug- 
gested.    They  only  grinned  at  me. 

"  Better  try  a  little  water  now,"  I  said. 
They  smacked  their  Ups. 

"  It  would  spoil  the  taste,"  they  averred. 

"It's  so  sweet,"  I  objected. 

"That's  why  we  like  it,"  they  replied. 

"Can  you  taste  it  yetV  I  asked. 

"Um— fine!" 

They  reviewed  the  pan. 

"There's  a  piece  you  didn't  get,"  said 
I.  It  was  scarcely  to  be  measured,  but 
they  divided  it.  I  gazed  silently.  Then 
the  thought  of  all  that  whiteness  gone, 
of  all  that  sweetness  never  to  be  licked 
again  in  pans  now  rusting  Heaven  knows 
where  —  it  was  too  much  for  me;  and 
when  they  licked  their  spoons,  critical- 
196 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

ly,   this   side    and    that    and    down    the 
handle ! — 

•'  That's  nothing,"  I  cried.  "  You  ought 
to  have  seen  the  pans  I  used  to  lick !  Um 
— chocolate!" 

They  went  on  licking  their  spoons. 

"Cocoa-nut's  better,"  they  declared. 

"Better  than  chocolate!"  I  retorted. 

"Um.  It's  sweeter,"  they  replied. 
They  were  so  calm  about  it,  so  devilishly 
contented  that  I — 

"What's  the  use  arguing?"  I  told  my- 
self. Turning  my  back  upon  them,  I 
sought  my  pipe.  "Come,  come,"  said  I, 
"be  a  man,  Jerry  Down.     Be  a  man." 

Now  the  cake  proved  good.  Barbara 
beamed  upon  the  whole  tea-table.  I 
thanked  her  publicly  in  a  set  speech,  in 
behalf  of  myself  and  boys,  and  to-night  I 
wrote  it  all  down  to  Kate — pan,  spoons, 
and  all. 

"Six  pages  of  cocoa-nut,"  I  told  my- 
self, as  I  numbered  the  seventh  and  still 
wrote  on. 

197 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"You  ask,"  I  wrote,  "what  your  birds 
and  flowers  are  doing,  Bert  saw  an  oriole 
this  morning.  Leslie  has  hunted  for  it  all 
day  long.  '  I  never  thee  anything  but  old 
robinth  an'  thparrows,'  he  complained  to 
me. 

"The  birds  had  an  orchard  brawl  to- 
night in  the  pear-trees — such  bickering, 
bullying,  billingsgate  you  never  heard — 
flights  and  counter-flights,  highway -birds 
skulking  in  leafy  lanes,  swift  sorties  from 
scented  thickets,  pecks,  cries,  sounds  as  of 
feathery  cudgellings !  It  was  a  quarter  to 
eight  and  a  cold,  damp  spring  twilight  be- 
fore they  stopped. 

"Chirp!  chirp!  chirp!  .  .  .  Chirp!  .  .  . 
Chirp!  chirp! 

"Silence. 

"Chirp! 

"'The  last  word,*  said  I,  'like  an  old 
woman.' 

"Chirp! 

"Silence  again,  save  for  a  church-bell. 

"Chirp! 

198 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Silence — silence.  The  last  rioter  was 
in  bed. 

"As  to  the  flowers,  Barbara  shall  tell 
you  of  the  wistaria  blooms,  pale  blue  and 
pendulous  on  the  porch  comer.  The  red 
blossoms  of  the  Japanese  quince  and  the 
yellow  ones  of  the  flowering  currant 
shrubs  are  dropping,  but  the  lilacs  are 
white  and  lilac  and  fragrant  in  full  flower. 
There's  bridal  wreath  and  almond  flowers 
and  bleeding  hearts  (including  mine),  but 
the  lilacs — um!  you  can  smell  them  from 
the  street.  All  the  Pidgeon  boys  except 
Margaret,  who  has  the  toothache  from 
eating  so  many  caramels,  were  here  to- 
night, finding  out  who  loves  butter  with 
our  last  dandelions. 

"I  said  I  would  leave  all  this  for  Bar- 
bara-to  write,  but  it  is  the  only  news  I 
can  think  of,  for  I  have  been  pottering 
around  in  the  brown  garden  ever  since  I 
came  home,  and  nothing  has  happened 
but  birds  singing  and  children  playing  and 
flowers  smelling  sweet.  We  are  getting 
199 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

on — don't  worry.     The  boys  are  as  good 
as  gold — " 

I  had  written  those  very  words  when  the 
door-bell  rang.  It  was  only  Mrs.  Pidgeon, 
but  as  I  ushered  her  in  I  thought  there  was 
a  certain  Httle  air  of  stiffness  I  had  never 
observed  before.  I  offered  her  my  pome- 
granate chair. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said. 
"What  ails  the  woman?"  I  asked  my- 
self. She  had  an  unwonted  color,  and 
the  chair  arms — at  least  the  lame  one, 
trembled,  I  thought,  in  her  nervous 
grasp. 

"  I  called,"  she  began,  but  paused  a  lit- 
tle, breathlessly,  so  that  I  lost  my  head  and 
blurted  out, 

"Oh,  I  heard  from  Kate  to-day." 
"  Indeed !     I  hope  she  is  well." 
"  Very.     She  is  going  to  stay  a  month." 
"  I — I  cannot  say  I  am  glad,"  my  neigh- 
bor replied,  frankly. 

"Nor  I,"  I  as  heartily  rejoined,  laugh- 
ing.   We  were  on  better  groimd.     "It  is 
200 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

very  good  of  you,"  said  I,  politely,  "to 
miss  her  too." 

*'l  do  miss  her,"  she  replied,  with  even 
more  emphasis,  I  thought,  than  the  matter 
warranted. 

"The  house,"  said  I,  "does  seem — " 

"In  fact,"  said  my  visitor,  who  did  not 
appear  to  hear  my  voice,  "your  boys — " 

She  paused  dramatically,  and  went  on: 
"Your  boys  miss  her,  Mr.  Down." 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  I,  "the  dear  little  fel- 
lows—" 

"There  is  every  evidence,  Mr.  Down, 
that  they  are — without  a  mother." 

"Oh  yes,"  I  assented.  "True— they 
are  without  a  mother."  There  was  an 
awkward  silence  then,  sufficient  time  to 
reach  for  my  pipe  and  lay  it  down  again 
and  cross  my  legs. 

"  Still,"  I  said,  "  Barbara  does  very  well 
for  one  so  young." 

There  was  no  assent.  Now  I  have  never 
known  Mrs.  Pidgeon  very  well.  In  fact, 
I  have  always  been  something  of  a  coward 

20I 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

before  that  famous  tongue,  but  I  like  her 
boys — Margaret  especially.  Pidgeon,  too, 
is  a  pleasant,  quiet  little  man. 

"Mr.  Down,"  said  my  caller,  trying  ap- 
parently to  say  it  calmly,  "you  may  won- 
der— you  may  think  it  strange  that  I 
should  call  in  this  way." 

"Why  should  I?"  I  interposed. 

"I  do  not  wish  to  interfere,"  she  con- 
tinued. 

"I'm  sure  you  would  not,"  I  replied, 
smiling,  but  scenting  evil  in  the  air. 

"And  I  would  not  come  to  you,"  she 
went  on,  candidly,  "were  your  wife  at 
home.  It  is  my  duty,  I  think,  however, 
in  her  absence,  to  inform  you — painful 
though  that  duty  may  be,  and  is,  Mr, 
Down — that  your  two  boys — " 

"Why,"  I  exclaimed,  "what—" 

"Mr.  Down,  they  have  been  teaching 
my  boys  to  swear!" 

"Impossible,  Mrs.  Pidgeon!" 

''Quite  possible,  Mr.  Down.  I  heard 
them  myself.     Yes,  by  the  back  fence. 

202 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

Your  little  Leslie  said — to  be  quite. frank 
with  you,  for  we  are  both  parents — said, 
'The  deviir" 

"The  devil!"  said  L 

"  Yes.  And  then  your  Bert  said — ^what 
we've  said  was  said — I  need  not  repeat  it," 

"No,"  said  I.  "Proceed,  Mrs.  Pidg- 
eon." 

"And  then  my  John  said  it,  and  then 
my  Thomas  said  it,  and  my  little  Philip 
said  it!" 

"Well,  well,"  I  mxirmured,  taking  a 
turn  into  the  bay  to  get  my  wits  about 
me. 

"And  that  is  not  all,  Mr.  Down." 

"What  then?"  I  gasped. 

"  When  I  went  out  to  them,  when  I  had 
told  them  what  naughty,  vulgar,  low-down 
language  I  had  overheard — words,  I  said, 
that  no  gentleman  would  dream  of  using 
— ^your  little  Leslie  spoke  right  up  and 
said—" 

"Oh,"  I  protested,  "are  you  positive, 
Mrs.  Pidgeon,  that  you — " 
203 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Positive?  Did  I  not  tell  you  that  I 
heard  them  myself?" 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "but—" 

"I  feared  you  would  doubt  me,"  she 
replied,  in  a  tone  of  cutting  sweetness. 
"You  are  always  taking  the  children's 
part." 

"Oh,"  said  I— 

"I  am  sorry,"  she  went  on,  "that  you 
should  think  for  a  moment  that  I  could — " 

"You  quite  misimderstand  me,"  I  pro- 
tested, 

"  You  have  known  me  for  a  good  many 
years,  Mr.  Down.  We  have  been  neigh- 
bors, and  I  do  not  think  you  can  say, 
truthfully,  that  in  any  previous  instance 
I  have  ever — " 

"Oh  no,  no,  no!"  I  exclaimed.  "Why, 
Mrs.  Pidgeon,  I  trust  you  implicitly — im- 
pHcitly!" 

"  Then  why  do  you— " 

"Oh,  I  don't.  I  don't,  Mrs.  Pidgeon. 
It  merely  struck  me — in  fact,  don't  you 
see,  I  was  so  surprised,  so  astounded  to 
204 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

think  that  your  children — who  as  I  have 
said,  not  once,  but  many  times  to  Kate, 
are  always  such  little  gentlemen — to  think 
that  your  children  should  have  permitted 
my  children  to  use  such — as  you  say — ^vul- 
gar language." 

"  I  am  glad,  Mr.  Down,  to  hear  you  say 
that.  Glad,  I  mean,  to  hear  you  call  such 
language  vulgar,  because  when  I  spoke  to 
the  boys,  using  that  very  adjective,  your 
Httle  Leslie—" 

"They  were  by  the  fence,  I  think  you 
said,  Mrs.  Pidgeon?" 

"  Right  by  the  back  fence." 

"By  the  currant  bushes?" 

"Yes.  Well,  no — hardly — ^just  by  the 
— just  about  where  you  have  your  holly- 
hocks." 

"  I  see,"  I  mused—"  by  the  hollyhocks." 

"Yes.  And  as  I  started  to  tell  you, 
Mr.  Down,  yotir  little — " 

"  Pardon  me,  Mrs.  Pidgeon,"  I  broke  in, 
"but  before  I  forget  it — and  I  shall  forget 
it  if  I  do  not  speak  at  once — let  me  say  to 
14  205 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

you  that  I  do  not  want  you  to  misunder- 
stand me.  I  am  not  attempting  to  de- 
fend my  boys  in  using  such — in  this  or  in 
any  other  misdemeanor.  They  are  usually 
good  boys,  I  think — I  have  never,  for  ex- 
ample, known  either  of  them  to  tell  a  lie." 

"A-ah!"  said  my  neighbor,  "that's  just 
the  point  I  was  getting  at,  though  I  should 
be  sorry,  indeed,  to  disappoint  you  in  your 
little  Leslie.  I  have  known  and  respected 
you  for  a  long  time,  Mr.  Down,  and  some- 
how I  couldn't  believe  he  was  speaking 
truthfully  when  he  said — " 

"  Mrs.  Pidgeon,"  I  said,  gravely,  and  with 
some  vehemence  for  one  of  my  easy  tem- 
perament, though  as  courteously  as  I 
could,  "spare  me  these  tales,  I  pray.  It 
is  a  peculiarity  of  mine  that  I  never  could 
bear  to  have  any  one,  even  Kate,  come 
to  me  telling  stories  about  my  children 
unless  I  was  needed  to  assist  in  preserving 
discipline.  I  take  it  that  I  am  needed 
now.  Let  us  come  to  the  point  then. 
What  would  you  have  me  do?" 
206 


THE  FLOWER  OP    YOUTH 

"Merely  this:  while  there  is  nothing  so 
very  terrible,  Mr.  Down,  in  what  they 
said—" 

"No,  nothing  criminal,"  I  assented, 
heartily. 

"Still,"  she  continued,  "it  is  important 
that  any  such  tendency  should  be  nipped 
in  the  bud." 

"Right,"  said  I. 

"And  surely,"  she  said,  "you  cannot 
expect  me  to  punish  my  boys  for  what  your 
boys—" 

"Certainly  not,  Mrs.  Pidgeon." 

"Yet  some  one,"  she  added,  "should  be 
held  responsible." 

"True,"  I  agreed.  "Mrs.  Pidgeon,  if 
you  will  leave  this  matter  entirely  in  my 
hands,  I  think  I  can  promise  you  that  the 
guilty  party  shall  not  escape.  Will  that 
be  satisfactory?" 

"Y-yes,"  she  replied,  rising.     "I  think 
so,    though  there  was  one  point — some- 
thing, I've  forgotten  what — I  had  partic- 
ularly intended  to — " 
207 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Be  assured,  Mrs.  Pidgeon,"  I  said, 
heartily,  as  we  moved  doorwards,  "I 
know  just  how  you  feel.  I  know  your 
pride  in  your  children,  of  whom  any  par- 
ent might  well  be  proud." 

"  Really,  Mr.  Down,  you  are  gopd  to  say 
so. 

"And  how  is  Margaret?"  I  asked. 

"  Much  better." 

"  I'm  glad  of  that.  What  a  glorious 
night.  By-the-way,  let  me  get  you  some 
pansies." 

Inside  alone  again  I  took  up  my  pen. 

"  The  boys  are  as  good  as  gold,"  I  read, 
and  added,  firmly: 

' '  All  is  peaceful  here.  With  love,  Jerry. ' ' 


HURSDAY:  "I  thought  Mrs. 
Pidgeon's  glance  suspicious  as  I 
nodded  good-morrow  to  her  on 
my  way  down-town — ^because,  I 
suppose,  she  has  not  yet  heard 
any  sound  of  crying.  Nor  will 
she,  though  she  listen  till  her  ears  are 
dumb.  That  devil  matter  has  been  settled 
painlessly. 

The  court  assembled  in  the  library. 
There  were  Barbara,  the  two  boys,  and  the 
guilty  man,  who  was  observed  to  shuffle 
in  his  seat  uneasily  and  shift  his  eyes  from 
the  murky  world  within  to  that  shining 
one  without  the  —  er  —  grated  windows. 
What  his  thoughts  were  as  he  saw  the 
bright  sun  gleaming  in  the  soft  spring 
foliage,  what  memories  may  then  have 
209 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

come  to  him  of  those  innocent  young  child- 
ish days  now  gone  forever,  when  he  played 
as  a  bright-eyed  child  by  his  mother's 
side,  what  blasted  hopes  may  have  torn 
that  bosom  heaving  now  tinder  a  weight 
of  sin — alas !  who  can  tell  ?     Ah,  well ! ! ! 

"Bert,"  said  the  guilty  man — "Leslie." 

"Yes,  sir." 

"  Mrs.  Pidgeon  was  here  last  night.  She 
says  that  you  boys  have  been  teaching  her 
boys  to  say  'the  devil.'  Is  that — er — 
true?" 

They  hung  their  heads. 

"Yes,  sir."     "Yeth,  thir." 

They  brightened  again. 

"But,  father,  you—" 

"  Exactly,  my  sons.  You  heard  me  say 
it.  I  said  it  in  a  thoughtless  moment, 
and  I  regret  it  very  much.  Oh,  it  isn't 
a  crime  to  say  it,  and  some  folks  think  it 
smart — but  I  don't.  It  isn't  a  good  word ; 
it's  vulgar;  and  though  a  man — even  a 
gentleman — may  say  it  sometimes,  fool- 
ishly, when  he  forgets  himself,  why,  when 

2IO 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

he  hears  his  boys  say  it — his  little,  young, 
manly  sons,  growing  up — hang  it  all,  it 
makes  him  ashamed  of  himself.  You 
know  how  it  is  yourselves:  a  fellow's  Hkely 
to  say  things,  now  and  then,  that  he's 
deuced  sorry  for  afterwards,  but,  I  tell 
you,  it  cuts  him  all  up  when  he  thinks  he's 
gone  and  tempted — er — other  nice  young 
fellows,  you  know,  to  say  the  same  silly 
thing.  Now,  just  between  us  three  and 
Barbara,  who — er — represents  your  mother 
in  this  matter — as  man  to  man,  I  thought 
I'd  speak  right  out  about  it  and — er — ask 
you  not  to  use  that  expression — if  you 
don't  mind,  I  don't  blame  you  at  all,  you 
understand.  I  blame  myself.  But  I — 
er — wanted  you  to  know  how  I  feel  about 
it,  and — er — what  do  you  say  to  ten  cents 
worth  of  gum-drops?  Do  you  feel  equal 
to  it?" 

They  did.  Yes,  sir,  they  did.  And 
there  were  no  tears,  no  whackings,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  devil,  I  have  every  rea- 
son to  believe,  was  checked  in  his  nefari- 

211 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

ous  mission-work  in  Chaffinch  Street.  And 
the  Pidgeon  boys  will  be  surprised  if  they 
try  that  swearing  game  on  my  two  primed 
and  ready  Httle  sons.  Oh,  I  know  them ! 
I  can  hear  Bert  now — for  in  the  role  of 
Jerry  Down  my  son  is  a  chip  of  the  old 
back-log.  I  may  not  be  a  hero  to  the 
world,  but  to  my  boys — ah !  without  ego- 
tism, I  may  say  it  frankly :  I  am  a  hero  of 
the  deepest  dye. 

I  was  a  boy  once  myself.  I  know  the 
feeling.  Sometimes  I  can  stand  away 
and  see  myself  as  if  I  were  my  own  father, 
and  then  I  find  I  am  apt  to  choose  the 
softer  word.  I  have  said  I  am  a  hero  to 
my  sons — yes,  but  a  hero  who  is  not  a 
hero,  or  only  a  friendly  sort  of  hero,  after 
all. 

Now  and  then  I  take  them  into  my  con- 
fidence, give  them — Bert  particularly,  for 
he  is  nearer  to  my  age — give  him  some  bit 
of  coimsel,  pearl  of  great  price  for  which 
I  paid  dearly  enough,  Heaven  knows,  in 
my  time.     What  does  he  say?     To  me: 

212 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

••Yes,  father." 

To  himself: 

•'That's  all  well  enough  for  father,  but 
he  doesn't  understand  me.  I'm  different, 
I  am." 

For  Bert,  remember,  is  a  sunburned 
school-boy  whose  heart  beats  faster  than 
his  head.  He  will  not  settle  down  into 
this  humdrum  life  of  father — bless  you, 
what  addle-patedness !  He'll  never  just 
live  on  from  day  to  day  supporting  his 
family — what  a  narrow,  hand-to-mouth, 
slave-till-night,  sleep-till-morning  sort  of 
business,  to  be  sure!  No,  Bert  is  to  be  a 
senator  or  a  general  or  something.  How, 
then,  can  my  advice  be  of  value  to  such  a 
man? 

My  father  was  just  such  an  ordinary 
fellow — till  I  grew  up  myself  and  became 
a  father  and  an  ordinary  man.  Now  it 
comes  to  me  sometimes  that  he  was  quite 
a  good  deal  of  a  kind  of  hero,  father  was, 
in  his  time. 

••Jerry,"  said  he,  one  day  when  I  was 
213 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

a  school-boy,  "you'll  get  some  of  this  non- 
sense knocked  out  of  your  head  one  of 
these  days." 

"Father,"  said  I,  "I'll  not  do  anything 
of  the  kind.  You  don't  understand  me; 
you  never  have;  you  never  will." 

"Humpf!"  said  father. 

"Bert,"  said  I  to  my  son  only  the 
other  day,  "when  you're  as  old  as  I  am 
you'll  learn  a  thing  or  two.  You'll  learn 
to—" 

"Father,"  said  he,  his  eyes  blazing  like 
coals — "father,  I'll  never  be  an  old  duffer." 

"Tut!"  said  I,  "ami—" 

"And,  father,"  said  he,  "  I'm  not  a  child 
any  more  like  Leslie,"  and  burst  into 
tears. 

Then  I  remembered  that  I  had  forgot- 
ten myself — even  most  boyish  of  fathers 
will.  I  had  been  trying  to  make  him  see 
things  my  way — it  was  all  so  plain  to  me ; 
he  had  been  trying  to  make  me  see  things 
his  way — ^it  was  all  so  plain  to  him;  and 
he  won't  see  my  way  for  years,  and  I — I'll 
214 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

never  quite  see  things  his  way  any  more — 
and  there  you  are,  and  a  nice  sort  of  pickle 
we  do  get  into  now  and  then. 

Am  I  an  old  duffer,  I  wonder?  I  am 
not  a  boy  any  longer,  it  is  true ;  and  if- 1 
am  not  a  boy — or  a  general  or  something 
— I  suppose  Bert's  right,  after  all.  The 
little  bird  bears  him  out.  Something 
warm  and  glowing — and  impudent — has 
departed.  I  just  live  on  from  day  to  day, 
working  for  the  boys  and  Kate.  Kate! 
Bert  loves  his  mother;  yes,  but  wait  a 
while  till  he  gets  to  the  wife-age.  His 
wife  never  will  breathe  hard  on  the  stairs. 
She  will  be  a  fairy  always  and  read  poems 
in  a  rose  garden.  .  .  .  Now,  how  in  Jericho 
did  I  guess  that?  Did  I  —  nonsense! 
And  suppose  I  did  ?  I  was  only  a  young 
fool  then.  Now — old  duffer — old  duffer, 
hey?  He  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  him- 
self, the  rapscallion,  calling  names. 

Dear  Kate!  who  writes  that  she  never 
was  half  so  lazy  and  free  from  the  little 
things  that  look  so  tall — ^but  adds,  I  note, 

215 


THE    FLOWER   OF    YOUTH 

that  a  month  is  a  long,  long  while  to  stay- 
away.  There  she  is  eighty  miles  and  al- 
most five  days  yonder,  on  the  other  side 
of  Care,  yet  sighs  to  be  back  again. 

"...  I  am  having  a  lovely,  lovely  time," 
she  writes  to  me.  "It  is  so  restful  here. 
It  is  doing  me  a  world  of — " 

See  how  she  tries  her  best  to  be  bHthe 
about  it! 

"...  Still  I  should  love  to  see  you,  d — 
Jerry"  (she  makes  her  J's  like  D's),  "and 
the  boys  and  Barbara — " 

Wives,  after  all,  are  such  dependent 
souls!  And  then  again,  over  the  page — 
here: 

"  There  is  no  hurry  in  this  charming — " 

Not  that. 

"I  can  sleep  so  late  in  the — " 

Nor  that. 

"  I  had  the  best— " 

Hm — that's  about  the  picnic.  Oh,  here 
it  is: 

"Do  you  realize  that  four  whole  days 
have  gone  already?" 
216 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

I  was  afraid  a  month  would  be  too 
much  for  her. 

"  And  do  you  realize  that  there  are  more 
than  three  whole  weeks  yet  left  to  play" — 
"stay,"  she  means,  though  it  looks  like 
"play" — "yes,  three  whole  weeks,  Jerry  " 
(listen  to  this!),  "  and  never  a  peep  at  my 
three  dear  boys  and  that  one  little  al- 
most-girl-of-oin-s !" 

Now  if  that  is  not  lonesomeness — but! 
see  how  she  ends: 

"A  month  is  a  long,  long  while  to  stay 
away." 

You  can  hear  her  sighing  between  the 
lines,  yet  she  thinks  she  is  fooling  me! 
Three  merry  pages  that  would  not  cheat  a 
ninny,  let  alone  a  husband — then  at  the 
very  end,  when  she  thinks  herself  safe, 
bubbles  over  and  gives  the  whole  thing 
away. 

"A  month  is  a  long" — dear  girl,  she 

never  could  quite  conceal  herself — "long 

while."    And  it  is,  when  you  come  to  think 

of  it — one- twelfth  of  a  year!    Think  of  a 

217 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

woman  away  from  her  home  and  children 
and  flowers  and  buttons  to  sew  on — one- 
twelfth  of  a  twelvemonth!  No  wonder 
her  heart  fails  her,  and  only  five  days 
gone.     I  should  be  lonesome  myself. 

You  cannot  work  for  the  ones  you  love, 
year  in,  year  out,  and  find  much  joy  away 
from  them.  I  know  myself,  for  the  very 
winds  now  sing  to  me  of  home,  because 
of  home  I  have  been  always  thinking 
as  they've  murmured  by  me,  mornings, 
evenings,  all  these  years.  Stmbeams  and 
shadows  playing  in  my  way  remind  me 
of  children  romping;  evening  skies  tell  me 
of  Kate,  always  of  Kate  —  because  in  a 
path  under  stars  and  pear-trees  we  have 
walked  together  when  the  day's  work  was 
done,  arm  in  arm,  brushing  the  currant 
bushes  as  we  passed,  bending  our  heads 
under  a  bough  just  low  enough  for  a  leap- 
ing boy. 

I  was  thinking  this  evening  in  the  gar- 
den, in  that  very  path — it  was  a  wonder- 
ful mild  May  twilight,  too  fragrant  far  to 
218 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

remain  in-doors,  and  somehow  I  had  no 
heart  for  books,  though  I  tried  them,  one 
by  one — I  was  thinking  of  this  and  that, 
and  Kate.  Life,  it  is  true,  is  a  Httle  quiet- 
er than  we  had  planned — but  so  the  brook 
comes  down  the  hill-side,  singing  bravely 
of  how  its  waters  will  stir  the  valley — 
yet  they  flow  below  there  sweetly,  calmly, 
without  a  murmur,  and  far  more  deeply 
than  before.  And  there,  also,  they  feed 
the  meadows ;  before  they  had  only  wetted 
a  few  bright  pebbles  and  moss  -  grown 
stones. 

So  did  the  brook  love  of  Beecher's  Lane 
come  plashing  into  Chafiinch  Street — and 
where  before  in  its  hill-side  pools  among 
the  rocks  it  paused  but  long  enough  to 
reflect  a  leaf  or  two  of  the  world  above  it, 
here  in  the  open  it  has  lingered  tranquilly 
to  give  back  cloud  for  cloud  and  star  for 
star. 

But  who  shall  make  words  nm  as  the 
days  run— not  too  blithely  nor  yet   too 
grimly  — sadly  here   and   sweetly   there, 
219 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

smoothly,  silently,  where  the  depths  are, 
babbling  gayly  over  shallows.  How  shall 
a  man  find  words  for  his  own  love-story — 
morning  words  with  the  dawn  just  shining 
through  them,  noontide  words  with  the 
Sim  hot  in  their  skies,  words  of  evening 
with  twilit  shadows,  night  words  still  and 
wonderful  as  with  the  moonbeam's  witch- 
ery? 

I  tried  the  house  again — the  garden  was 
so  still.  I  tried  my  pipe,  my  books,  but 
rose  and  tramped  again  in  the  little  path- 
way. The  place  seemed  quiet  as  the  tomb. 
The  boys  had  gone  up-stairs  early.  Bar- 
bara was  away.  It  was  a  silent,  moody 
kind  of  night. 

Now  I  love  flowers — less  to  pluck  them 
than  to  watch  them,  happy  in  the  places 
where  they  once  were  little,  and  to  snuff 
them  in  with  the  airs  they  scent.  To- 
night that  fragrance  of  Kate's  dear  gar- 
den— I  was  thinking  of  her,  and  it  seem- 
ed to  me  as  I  looked  backward  that  I 
might  have  been  kinder  sometimes.  I  was 
220 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

thinking  of  her  and  her  —  boys,  she  calls 
us,  all  three  of  us — nay,  four  there  are  to 
this  very  day,  for  even  as  I  walked  to- 
night with  the  sound  of  leaves  above  me, 
I  heard  a  wind  blowing  in  some  other, 
some  half -remembered  May — and  Jamie's 
voice. 

Then  selfishly  I  fell  to  thinking  of  that 
one  of  four  who  first  grew  up,  and  then 
grew  down  again  to  be,  Kate  says  some- 
times, the  youngest  of  them  all. 

"Where,"  I  asked,  "are  the  sabre  scars 
on  those  apple-cheeks,  rotmd  and  ruddy? 
Ay,  there  are  seams  there — and  about  the 
comers  of  that  old  mouth!  What  of  the 
blood  and  the  smoke  and  the  bugles  blow- 
ing?" 

I  asked  it  of  that  little  boy  grown  griz- 
zled in  a  nameless  war,  and  now  never 
to  be  a  hero. 

"  Tell  me,"  I  asked,  "  how  was  it  that  *  a 
youth  and  ruddy  and  of  a  fair  coimte- 
nance'  went  out  to  conquer  a  Philistine 
world  with  *  five  smooth  stones  out  of  the 

»5  221 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

brook,  in  a  shepherd's  bag' — and  came 
back  but  an  uncle-y  goodman,  and  with- 
out a  tale  for  his  children  climbing  upon 
his  knee  ?  Where  did  you  get  those  scars 
then,  Jerry  Down?" 

The  world  was  silent.  I  lingered  long 
after  all  in  the  street  seemed  sleeping — 
yet  was  not  alone.  I  had  gone  inside. 
The  clock  struck  twelve  as  I  turned  to  the 
windows  to  shut  them  for  the  night.  I 
heard  a  noise  without.  I  peered  out  cau- 
tiously. All  seemed  quiet,  but  still  I  lis- 
tened. Suddenly  I  heard  again  a  kind 
of  grating  sound,  which  came,  I  thought, 
from  the  old  pear-tree. 

"Odd,"  said  I,  with  a  queer  kind  of 
prickling  in  my  hair.  "  Some  one  is  break- 
ing in!" 

Then  a  shadow  dropped  from  those 
dark  boughs  —  and,  mark  you,  with  a 
thud! 

"Early  for  pears,"  said  I.  "Some  one 
is  breaking  out." 

But  all  was  silent.     I  drew  back  care- 

222 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

fully  and  put  out  the  light.     There  was  a 
whisper  then: 

"All  right.     Come  on." 

Another — from  above  somewhere: 

"I'm  afraid." 

"Sh.'not  so  loud." 

"  But  I  can't  reach  it." 

•'  I  think,"  said  I, "  I  will  pick  that  fruit," 
and  I  stole  noiselessly  from  the  window. 
To  the  garden  is  but  a  step  from  the  kitchen 
doorway,  and  as  I  walked  there,  full  in  the 
moonlight,  smoking  and  musing  of  that 
fairy  world  of  nocturnal  May,  I  thought  to 
myself:  How  beautiful  is  an  aging  pear- 
tree,  though  it  leans  decrepitly  upon  a  sill ! 

"And  what  an  odd,  gnarled  trunk!"  I 
said,  aloud.  "  I  never  noticed  that  btmip 
before." 

A  strange  bump,  too,  it  was ;  no  matter 
from  where  you  viewed  it,  it  seemed  to  be 
always  on  the  farther  side. 

I  seated  myself  where  the  moon  was 
brightest — sat  there  a  full  half -hour  if  I 
sat  a  minute.     Then  I  heard  a  sigh. 
223 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"  Dear  little  boys,"  I  murmured,  "  asleep 
up-stairs." 

The  bump  was  motionless. 

"Never,"  I  mused,  but  so  that  the 
world  might  hear  if  so  it  chose  —  "nev- 
er were  two  such  good  little  sons  as 
mine." 

I  was  not  sure,  but  the  bump  seemed 
lower. 

"Always  obedient,"  I  went  on.  "Al- 
ways frank  and  manly — oh,  never  sneak- 
ing!" 

Can  a  bump  sob? 

I  hummed  a  little  to  hide  any  sounds 
that  might  be  around. 

"Pleasant  night,  don't  you  think,  Ber- 
tie?" 

There  was  an  awful  stillness.  Not  a 
leaf  stirred.     Then, 

"Y-yes,  sir,"  said  the  bump. 

"  Pleasant  pear-tree,  too,"  said  I. 

"Y-yes,  sir." 

"  But  shady,"  I  said.  "  Have  you  tried 
the  moonlight?" 

224 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

**N-no,  sir,"  the  bump  replied. 

"Why  not?" 

"There  w-wasn't  time." 

"Leslie,  too,"  said  I,  "surely  he  would 
have  liked  to  be  here." 

"He — c-couldn't  come,  sir,"  said  the 
bump. 

"Too  bad.     Why  not?" 

"He  c-couldn't  reach  it?" 

"  Ah,"  said  I.     "  What  was  the  game  ?" 

There  was  no  reply. 

"  Melons  aren't  ripe,"  I  said,  irrelevant- 
ly.    "What  was  the  game,  anyhow?" 

"Knights,"  said  the  bump.  It  was  a 
shy- voiced  bump. 

"And  you,"  said  I,  "were—?" 

"Lanc'lot." 

"  Ah !  You  had  been — imprisoned,  as  it 
were?" 

"Y-yes,  sir." 

It  was  a  beautiful  nignt  for  knights.  I 
had  half  a  mind— "Tut,"  I  told  myself, 
"you're  an  old  fool,  Jerry." 

"It's  one  o'clock,"  said  I,  knocking  the 
225 


THE    FLOWER   OF    YOUTH 

ashes  from  my  pipe.  "Think  I'll  turn  in, 
if  you  don't  mind,  Lancelot." 

"No,  sir." 

"Mind  going  back  alone?"  I  asked — "in 
the  dark?" 

"Oh  no,  sir,"  said  the  bump,  bravely. 

"The — ^way  you  came?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,  sir."     It  was  an  eager  bump. 

"Good-night,"  said  I. 

I  went  inside.  Carefully  I  locked  the 
doors  behind  me.  Then,  as  I  stood  up- 
stairs, musing  by  the  window  of  Kate's 
room  and  mine,  a  pleasant,  grating  sound 
came  from  the  pear-tree — and  made  me 
sigh. 


VI 


RIDAY :    I  walked    homeward 
from  the  office,  it  was  so  golden 
an    afternoon.     Why,    I    know 
not,  but  my  spirits  sank  slowly 
with  the  sun.     Even  the  pleas- 
ant soimd  of  bells  in  the  street 
behind  me  sent  my  thoughts  backward  to 
Beecher's  Lane. 
Tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-tinkle — 
"Cow-bells,"    said   I,    thinking  of  the 
meadows,  of   Bess  and   Buttercup,  Milk- 
weed and  Daisy — the  Beecher  Jerseys — 
and  the  boy  named  Bill  who  drove  them, 
on  just  such  soft-aired  evenings,  through 
the  bars.     I  wonder  where  that  lad  is  now. 
Tinkle-tinkle— 

They  were  coming  nearer,  some  herd, 
doubtless,  bound  for  the  country. 
227 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

Tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-tinkle — 

It  was  irresistible.  I  stopped  and  turn- 
ed to  them. 

"Ra-ags!" 

Bah!  It  was  nothing  but  an  old- 
clothes  cart  with  cow-bells  strung  across 
a  wire  and  tinkling  mockingly.  I  could 
have  throttled  the  dirty  little  Jew. 

"As  he  ought  to  be,"  I  growled,  "for 
driving  such  an  old,  Httle  grandfather  of  a 
horse." 

Tinkle-tinkle— 

"Poor  old  cow-bells,"  thought  I,  sadly, 
to  myself  as  I  turned  my  back  again — or, 
rather,  it  was  a  boy  grown  tall  who  mused 
of  them,  "  Sweet,  old  bells,  to  what  base 
usage  you  have  fallen  in  these  evil  days — 
you  who  were  once  the  trade-mark  of 
scented  lanes." 

The  town  still  grows  and  changes .  Soon , 
I  suppose,  they  will  ask  for  our  gray-blue 
house  and  its  vines  and  lilacs  and  its  old 
pear-trees.  The  square  opposite  was  sold 
this  morning — every  gray  stone  of  it,  every 
228 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

green  leaf  and  fragrant  flower — to  build, 
they  tell  me,  a  row  of  flats  there,  five 
stories  high,  ere  the  year  is  gone. 

I  turned  at  my  gate  to  gaze  at  the  grim 
old  mansion,  feeling  a  sadness  for  its  doom, 

"Poor,  frowning  thing,"  I  mused.     "I 
wonder  if  any  one  ever  loved  you?" 

The  Princess  did  not;  in  years  she  has 
never  been  once  in  Chaffinch  Street.  Her 
father,  the  millionaire,  died  long  ago. 
Her  mother's  cheeks,  they  say,  must  have 
been  very  beautiful  when  she  was  young; 
and  she  herself.  Princess  of  a  boy's  first 
wondering  dream  of  gold,  is  a  widow  now. 
The  captain,  it  seems,  proved  far  too 
handsome  to  love  but  one  woman;  the 
Princess,  I  hear  it  whispered,  proved  far 
too  fair  to  waste  that  beauty  sighing,  so 
she  holds  a  court  somewhere  in  Italy  (on 
a  terrace,  Barbara) ,  from  which  float  airy 
nmiors  now  and  then.  First  it  was  to 
be  a  count,  and  then  a  baron;  when  last 
we  heard  it  was  to  be  only  another  of 
those  e very-day  millionaires. 
229 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

As  I  gazed  at  her  old  home  opposite 
I  felt  a  pity  for  its  loneliness.  When  its 
stones  are  razed  there  will  be  no  one  to 
shed  a  tear  for  them;  no  one  has  dwelt 
among  them  long  enough  to  care,  and  so 
to  no  one  will  those  shattered  walls  be  so 
many  broken  pieces  of  a  precious  past. 

No  one  ? 

Yes,  I  told  myself,  there  will  be  two 
motimers  there  —  two  who  never  owned 
stick  or  stone  or  leaf  or  flower  in  all  that 
square  will  watch  their  passing  and  be 
sorry,  for  the  sake  of  other  days  and  other 
dreams,  however  sad  or  foolish  and  cast 
away. 

Then  I  turned  to  my  little  home  behind 
me — old  and  scarred  but  seeming  a  part 
of  its  flowered  setting.  I  felt  a  tugging 
at  my  heart-strings. 

"Sell  you!  You,  little  house!  You!" 
I  told  myself.  I  could  have  crushed  it  in 
my  arms.  Why,  all  my  world  was  there — 
all,  then,  save  Katie.  For  after  Jamie  and 
his  little  years  had  gone,  the  gray-blue 
230 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

house  grew  slowly,  strangely  beautiful  with 
vines  and  memories  and  the  voices  of  other 
children  climbing  its  lap  in  play.  Lilacs 
and  pear-trees,  gables  and  moss-grown 
shingles,  the  little  garden,  the  little  walk 
bordered  by  pinks  and  leading  downward 
from  the  great  world — world  of  love — into 
the  little  one — world  of  toil — in  time  have 
shone  again,  something  as  on  that  first 
morning  when  the  little  boy  who  was  to 
be  a  hero  ran  up  those  three  gray  steps 
beyond  the  jug. 

In  life  we  found,  in  life  as  in  love,  even 
the  common  things  blossomed  in  course  of 
time.  Things  in  the  first  chapters  have 
wondrous  meaning,  sometimes,  in  the  end. 

Only  this  morning  there  came  a  car- 
penter to  mend  a  leak  in  the  old  roof. 

"Careful!"  said  I.  "Don't  rub  the 
moss  off  those  shingles." 

The  fellow  turned  on  his  ladder  and 
grinned  derisively. 

"If  I  owned  'em  I'd  chuck  'em  all," 
said  he. 

231 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  I  replied, 
warmly.  "Genuine  cedar  shingles  don't 
grow  on  every  roof,  and  those  were  laid 
there  long  before  you  were  bom,  young 
man." 

"That  there  vine,"  said  he,  "ought  to 
come  off." 

"Hold  on!"  I  cried;  "the  leak  isn't 
there!" 

"No,  but  there'll  be  one  there,  and  in 
mighty  short  order,  too,  if  you  let  that 
vine  lie  around." 

"Never  mind,"  said  I,  "we  won't  cross 
bridges.  That  vine  has  lain  there  some 
little  time." 

"Just  as  you  say,"  he  retorted,  test- 
ily, "but,  as  the  fellow  says,  'an  ounce  of 
prevent-ation  is  worth  a  pound  of  cure.' " 

"  A  new  way  of  putting  it,"  said  I. 

"And  vines  make  houses — r -rotten''  he 
called  down  to  me,  wrenching  a  shingle 
off  by  way  of  emphasis.  It  brought  the 
blood  to  my  face. 

"Easy!  easy!"  I  protested,  shuddering, 
232 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

for  to  me  it  was  surgery  that  the  brute 
was  performing  there.  When  it  was  over 
I  breathed  more  easily,  but  at  that  glaring 
yellow  patch  I  shook  my  head. 

"  Now  if  your  whole  roof  was  like  that," 
said  the  carpenter,  "and  you'd  tear  down 
them  old  vines  and  pull  up  some  of  them 
old  bushes  and  trim  up  these  here  old 
trees,  you'd  have  as  neat-a-looking  place 
as  there  is  in  Chaffinch  Street." 

"Pardon  me,"  said  I.  "Do  you  think 
it  will  rain?" 

"Does  look  some  like  it,"  he  replied, 
scanning  the  sky. 

"Thank  God,"  I  said,  so  fervently  that 
he  stared  inquiringly.  ' '  A  few  good  storms, 
young  man,"  I  added,  pausing  to  let  his 
brain  catch  up  to  me,  "will  heal  that 
gaping  wound  up  there." 

Barbara  tells  me  that  after  I  had 
gone  he  turned  to  her  and  tapped  his 
forehead  with  the  knuckles  of  his  hairy 
hand. 

Dear  Barbara!  Her  hands  are  ftdl  of 
233 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

boys.     I  found  her  sitting  in  the  garden 
with  a  pocket-handkerchief. 

"Why,  what's  the  matter,  pretty  one?" 
said  I. 

"N-no thing,"  she  repHed,  sighing  and 
twisting  a  damp  Uttle  lace-edged  square. 

"Come,  come,"  I  said,  seating  myself 
beside  her.     ' '  There  is  something  wrong !' ' 

Still  she  was  silent.  I  slipped  my  arm 
about  her  and  drew  her  cosily  to  my  side. 

"Tired?"  I  asked. 

"N-nop." 

"Angry?" 

"N-nop." 

"Just  sad?" 

She  nodded  her  head. 

"Why?"  I  asked.     "Is  it  the  boys?" 

She  nodded  again.  Then  she  found  a 
little  shred  of  a  piping  voice,  tremulous, 
threatening  to  break. 

"They — they  were  horrid!" 

"To  you?"  I  asked. 

"Um.     I  only — I  only  wanted  them  to 
be  clean — that's  all." 
234 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Were  they  little  pigs?" 

"Yes.     They  were  all  speckle-dy." 

"Spattered,  you  mean?" 

"Yes,  speckle-dy.  I  told  them  they 
mustn't  go  over  to  the  Pidgeons'  till 
they'd  washed  their  faces,  but  they — 
went." 

"Are  they  over  there  now?"  I  asked, 
preparing  to  follow. 

"No.  The  Pidgeons  took  them  for  a 
trolley  ride." 

"All  speckle-dy?" 

"Yes.  They  wouldn't  wash,  and  they 
— laughed  at  me." 

"Little  wretches!"  I  muttered. 

"Uncle  Jerry,  I  try  so  hard  to  be  a 
— m-m -mother  to  them." 

I  had  never  seen  so  many  tears.  There 
was  a  whole  brook  of  them  trickling 
down. 

"Darling,"  said  I,  "now  don't  you  cry. 
I  know  how — " 
"But  I'm  so — young,  Uncle  Jerry." 
"There,    there,"    said    I.     "You    are 
235 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

doing  beautifully,  beautifully,  my  dear 
Barbara,  beautifully.  Why,  the  devil 
himself  couldn't  manage  those  boys  some- 
times.    Even  I  can't  always  do  it." 

"Atmt  Kate  can." 

"Ah,  well.  Aunt  Kate,  of  course.  But 
she's  their  mother." 

"  I  try  to  do  just  as  she  does." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  I  said. 

"I  try  to  be  sweet  with  them." 

"And  you  are  sweet  with  them,  my 
dear.     Doesn't  it  work?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  I  called  them '  dearies,' "  she  explained, 
"  and  they  laughed  at  me." 

' '  Imps !' '  said  I.      "  Wait  till  I—' ' 

"The  sweeter  I  am  the  badder  they 
are."  With  that  she  laughed  a  little  her- 
self and  put  her  hair  out  of  her  eyes. 

"I  know  I'm  a  sight!"  she  said — being 
a  woman,  albeit  yoimg. 

"You're  an  angel,"  I  declared.  "Poor 
little  soul,  they  shall  go  down  on  their 
knees  to  you.  You  shall  see.  Now  they 
236 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

really  adore  you,  my  dear,  though  they 
are  a  bit  awkward  at  showing  it,  I'll  ad- 
mit.    But,  come  now — be  of  good  cheer." 

"You're  not  so  terribly  cheerful  your- 
self. Uncle  Jerry." 

"What!"   said  I.     "Not  cheerful— I?" 

"You're  putting  it  on,"  she  replied. 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Why,  your  face.  Uncle  Jerry,  when 
you  came  up  the  path,  was  as  long  as — " 

* '  Nonsense !' '  said  I .  "I  was  only  think- 
ing." 

"Why  did  you  sigh  so?" 

"Sigh  so?     I  sigh?" 

"Yes — twice.  Before  you  came  by  the 
bush  and  saw  me  here." 

"Did  I?" 

"You  sighed  twice." 

"  I  was  tired,  I  suppose." 

"No,"  said  my  niece,  firmly.  "It  was 
not  a  tired  sigh." 

"But  you  were  so  busy  sighing  yotir- 
self,"  I  protested,  "how  did  you  happen 
to  notice  me?" 

i6  237 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

"Aunt  Kate  told  me  to." 

"To  what?" 

"Watch." 

"Watch  what?" 

"You." 

"Me?" 

"Yes." 

"What  for?" 

"Signs." 

"Signs!"  I  cried— "of  what,  Barbara?" 

"  Lonesomeness." 

"I  lonesome!"  I  exclaimed.  "/,  with 
you  here  and  the  boys  and  all  these  nice 
little  birds  and  things!  It  is  far  more 
likely  that  your  aunt  is  homesick,  my 
dear." 

"She  does  seem  homesick,"  said  my 
niece. 

"You  think  so,  too?"  I  inquired. 

"Oh  yes,  Uncle  Jerry.  You  can  see  it 
sticking  right  out  of  her  letters." 

"Well,  do  you  know,"  said  I,  "that's 
just  what  I've  been  thinking." 

"There  where  she  said — don't  you  re- 
238 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

member,  Uncle  Jerry? — in  her  last  letter 
— the  part  where  she  said  she  would  have 
given  that  whole  tea-party  for  one  good 
cup  with  us  at  home  ?  That  sounded  aw- 
fully suspicious,  I  thought." 

"  I  noticed  it,  too." 

"And  there  where  she  spoke  about 
Leslie  taking  cold.  Uncle  Jerry — " 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "I  remember." 

"Where  she  said,  'Jerry,  now  do  be 
careful  about  keeping  him  covered  nights.* 
Why,  I  could  just  hear  Aimt  Kate!" 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  I.  "Oh,  she  misses 
us,  Barbara,  She  misses  us.  There  isn't 
a  doubt  about  it.  Leslie's  a  little  deHcate, 
you  know,  and  Kate's  always  worrying 
about  him." 

"He  seemed  flushed  to-day,"  said  my 
niece.  "I  was  a  little  worried  myself, 
but  I  think  it  was  the  heat." 

"He'd  been  playing  hard,  doubtless," 
I  said. 

"Yes.     Wild  West." 

"That  would  account  for  it.  Oh,  she's 
239 


THE    FLOWER    OF   YOUTH 

homesick,  Barbara.  There  is  no  use  talk- 
ing— she's  homesick.  And,  I  tell  you, 
when  I  think  of  that  poor  girl  up  there 
suffering — loneliness  is  suffering — home- 
sick and  lonely,  while  you  and  I  and  the 
boys  are  having  such  —  such  jolly  times 
together  down  here  at  home — why,  I — ^by 
George!  it  doesn't  seem  right  somehow. 
It  seems  selfish  in  us." 

"  I  had  meant  to  do  so  much  this  week," 
sighed  Barbara.  "I  wanted  to  read,  but 
somehow  I  haven't  felt  like  it." 

"Nor  I,"  r  replied.  "The  books  have 
been  stupid.  The  tobacco's  been  strong. 
I  don't  know  what's  got  into  it,  but  I'm 
afraid  I  shall  have  to  change  my  brand. 
It  used  to  be  mild,  but  the  last  few  pipes 
I've  smoked — George !  I  don't  seem  to  en- 
joy it  at  all.  I  tried  to  read  Pickwick 
last  night,  and,  do  you  know,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  there  were  several  scenes  there 
just  a  lee-tle  bit  overdrawn." 

"The  house  hasn't  seemed  the  same," 
said  my  niece. 

240 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"And  the  garden,"  said  I;  "have  you 
noticed  anything — anything  in  particular, 
Barbara,  about  the  garden?" 

"The  garden?"  she  queried,  looking 
about  her. 

"  It  may  sound  foolish,  I'll  admit,"  said 
I, "  but  I've  been  watching,  and,  by  George ! 
it  seems  to  me  that  there  aren't  so  many 
flowers  blooming  since  Kate  went  away. 
Now  I've  read  somewhere  that  there  are 
people  who  have  a  most  wonderfully 
healthful  influence  over  plants,  so  that 
flowers  always  grow  for  them,  while  for 
other  folk,  in  the  very  same  identical 
place,  they  only  wilt  and  die." 

"She's  always  fussing  about  with  a 
trowel,"  said  my  niece.  "Don't  you 
think  that  might  account  for  it?" 

"Possibly,"  I  replied.  "Still,  I  have 
a  notion  that  there  is  more  in  the  mere 
influence  than  we  imagine.  It  is  true 
in  other  matters — on  you  and  me,  for  in- 
stance, as  we  have  said,  Kate's  influence 
is  sweet  and  soothing — " 
241 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"And  trowel-y?"  my  niece  suggested. 

"Yes,"  I  assented,  laughing.  "Trow- 
el-y, to  be  sure.  I'm  awfully  weedy  just 
at  present,  Barbara.  Well,  now,  if  it  is 
true  of  human  beings,  why  not  of  flow- 
ers?" 

"It's  a  nice  idea,"  she  said. 

"We  know,"  said  I,  "that  she  is  lone- 
some for  her  garden.  She  says  as  much. 
Well,  do  you  know,  I  can  believe  that  her 
garden  is  lonesome  for  her," 

"I'd  like  to  see  her  myself,"  Barbara 
confessed. 

"Would  you?"  I  asked.  "Just  how 
do  you  feel  about  it.  How  does  it  affect 
you,  I  mean  ?  Does  the  house  seem  large, 
for  instance?" 

"0-oh,  higP'  she  answered. 

"And  kind  of — hollow-sounding?" 

"Echo-y,"  said  my  niece. 

"And  do  you  catch  yourself  yawning?" 

"Yes." 

"And  sighing  all  day  long,  without  any 
particular  reason  that  you  can  think  of?* 
242 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Yes,  often,  Uncle  Jerry.  And  I  get 
sleepy  by  eight  o'clock," 

"And  does  the  dark  out  in  the  yard,"  I 
asked,  "seem  still  and  dismal?" 

"Spooky,"  she  replied,  shuddering. 

"And  the  trolley-cars,"  said  I,  "away 
off  in  the  distance,  while  you  are  trying 
to  get  to  sleep,  do  they  sound  like  some 
one  moaning?" 

"Yes,"  cried  my  niece,  "I  had  never 
thought  of  it — but  they  do,  Uncle  Jerry! 
They  do!" 

"And  do  you  lie  there  listening,"  said  I 
— "listening  and  turning,  and  turning 
and  listening,  and  thinking  and  wonder- 
ing why  in  the  name  of  time  they  ever 
made  weeks  seven  days  long?" 

"Yes,"  sighed  Barbara,  "it  seems  a 
year  since  Saturday." 

I  shook  my  head, 

"Yours  is  certainly  a  most  interesting 
case,  my  dear,"  said  I, 

Then  we  sat  awhile,  silently,  till  Barbara 
sighed. 

243 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Dear  Aunt  Kate!     She's  so  lovely." 

"Yes,"  said  I. 

"So  gentle,"  said  my  niece. 

"Yes,"  said  I. 

"And  so  young,  Uncle  Jerry,  Why, 
she's  twice  as  much  fun  as  some  of  the 
girls  I  know." 

"I  can  believe  you," 

"Oh,  I  hope  she'll  never  be  disappoint- 
ed, or  anything.  Uncle  Jerry,  and  go  and 
get  bitter  like  old  Aunt  Sarah." 

"Never  fear,"  said  I,  "It  takes  more 
than  a  thtmder-storm,  Barbara,  to  sour 
the  milk  of  human  kindness," 

"Why,  only  to  be  in  the  same  place 
with  her  is  beautiful,"  said  my  niece. 

"Yes,"  I  sighed, 

"And  her  face.  Uncle  Jerry.  Some- 
times— it's  like  a  picture!" 

"So  it  is." 

"And  her  smile.  Uncle  Jerry.  Did  you 
ever  notice  her  smile?" 

"Oh  yes." 

"And  her  eyes?" 

244 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Often,  my  dear." 

My  niece  was  thoughtful. 

"What  is  it,  sometimes,  in  Aimt  Kate's 
eyes  that  makes  them  look  as  if  the  tears 
were  coming?     Yet  she  doesn't  cry." 

I  patted  her  hand. 

"Ah,  that,  my  dear,  is  Yesterday." 

"Yesterday?" 

"Yes — all  the  things  that  have  ever 
happened." 

"  But  then  again,  Uncle  Jerry,  her  eyes 
dance." 

"Like  yours,"  I  said,  smoothing  her 
hair. 

"And  what  is  that?" 

"Well,  that's  To-morrow." 

We  both  sat  thinking  again,  silent,  till 
Barbara  sighed — it  is  contagious. 

"  I  think  I'll  go  in,"  I  said,  rising,  "  and 
write  a  letter." 

"I'm  afraid  I've  been  awfully  foolish," 
my  niece  apologized,  rising  with  me,  for 
my  arm  was  about  her  waist.  "But  I 
just  had  to  bubble  over." 

245 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Of  course,"  I  said.  *' We  all  do.  She 
will  have  it  to-morrow  morning  if  it's 
mailed  by  six." 

I  had  reached  the  bottom  of  the  fourth 
page,  I  remember,  when  a  thought  struck 
me. 

"By  George!  Barbara,  I'd  like  to  add 
a  postscript." 

"To  say  what,  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"Why — not  to  stay  any  longer,  if  she 
feels—" 

"Oh,  what  would  Aunt  Phoebe  say?" 

"I  was  thinking  of  that." 

"It  would  never  do,"  said  my  niece. 

"No,"  I  replied.  "But  do  you  really 
think  she'll  stay  the  month  out?" 

"It  doesn't  seem  so.  A  month  is  a 
long  time,  Uncle  Jerry." 

"So  she  says." 

I  addressed  the  envelope. 

"By  George!"  said  I. 

"What,  Uncle  Jerry?" 

"Nothing;  I  was  only  thinking." 

I  did  not  seal  the  letter  just  at  once. 
246 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

There  was  time  enough  to  light  my  pipe, 
and  while  I  did  so — 

"Barbara,"  said  I,  "did  you  feel  of 
Leslie's  head  when  he  came  in  flushed  to- 
day?" 

"Yes.  It  was  awfully  hot.  Still,  he'd 
been  playing  Wild  West,  you  know." 

"Were  his  hands  dry?" 

"Really,  I  didn't  notice,  Uncle  Jerry." 

"You  should  always  be  careful  to  ob- 
serve that,  Barbara.  It  is  a  very  impor- 
tant indication." 

Then  happening  to  remember  that  the 
letter  was  still  unsent,  I  added,  hastily,  a 
line  or  two  that  had  come  to  mind — sealed 
it,  and  took  my  hat. 

"  I'll  run  around  to  the  sub-station,"  I 
explained,  "just  to  make  sure  that  it  goes 
by  six." 


VII 


ATURDAY:  I  rose  earlier  than 
my  wont.  The  bloom  was  on 
the  morning,  the  boughs  so  full 
of  choristers  I  wondered  I  had 
ever  lain  so  deafly  to  a  later 
hour.  The  green  below,  the 
cloudless,  sun -bright  blue  above,  the 
breath  of  the  garden  still  cool  with  night 
and  sweet  with  old-fashioned  posies  went 
to  my  head  like  wine. 

"Thank  God!"  said  I,  but  less  for  the 
morning,  May-fair  and  wondrous  though 
it  was,  than  for  the  brimming  heart  I  felt 
within.  It  was  a  sign  to  me  —  that  my 
youth  still  flowered. 

"Good-morning,  James,"  I  said  to  the 
milkman's  son.     I   said  it  carelessly,   as 
coldly,  as  condescendingly  as  I  could — to 
248 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

prove,  no  doubt,  that  though  I  was  still  a 
boy  I  was  a  man  as  well.  Then  I  walked 
soberly  into  the  garden,  which  I  think  I 
told  you — no? — is  called  Kate's  Delight. 
When  her  callers  come,  even  though  after 
three  of  a  likely,  fair  afternoon,  they  are 
apt  to  find  her,  I  am  told,  with  the  water- 
ing-can. It  is  not  allowed  by  the  regula- 
tions, but  no  one  cavils,  I  believe — for 
they  go  through  the  gate  smiling  and  far 
more  gorgeously  than  they  came. 

"  I  will  be  gardener  to-day,"  said  I,  "  as 
an  appetizer."  So  I  pruned  a  little.  I 
put  wistaria  in  the  parlor;  in  the  dining- 
room,  almond  flowers  and  bleeding-hearts ; 
in  the  library,  lilacs. 

"Why,  Uncle  Jerry!"  said  a  voice  from 
an  upper  window — there  was  a  sleepy  face 
there,  too,  I  could  hear  plainly,  but  could 
not  see  it  for  the  screening  leaves — "I 
thought  you  were  abed." 

"The  morning,"  I  replied,  virtuously — 
for  early  risers,  I  observe,  whether  daily  or 
otherwise,  can  never  let  well-enough  alone 
249 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

— "the  morning  is  far  too  fine  for  folk 
to  lie  abed  wasting  the  golden  hours.  For 
shame,  Barbara !  Slothful  one,  canst  thou 
not  hear  the  dicky-birds  carolling  in  the 
greenwood-tree?  Dost  thou  not  see  thy 
imcle  about  a  fragrant  business  of  herbs 
and  honey?  Up,  girl!  Up!  Dost  hear 
me?" 

There  was  no  answer.  It  is  the  way 
with  sluggards,  daily  or  otherwise.  There 
is  no  cheerfulness  among  them,  no  view- 
halloo,  no  pipe  and  tabor,  no  repartee. 
She  came  down  yawning. 

' '  Lilacs, ' '  she  said.  ' '  Why,  Uncle  Jerry, 
you — " 

"The  vases  were  all  so  small,"  I  said. 

My  niece  looked  pensive.  I  thought  it 
a  cobweb  hanging  from  some  recent 
dream,  but  it  seems  she  was  really  think- 
ing. 

"Didn't  you  tell  me  once — "  she  be- 
gan. 

"Possibly,"  I  replied. 

"  Wasn't  there  something  in  a  story  you 
250 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

made  up  for  me — don't  you  remember  ? — 
that  night  last  fall  ?    Why,  yes,  there  was !' ' 

"Was  there?" 

"Oh,  Uncle  Jerry!"  she  exclaimed.  Her 
eyes  had  lost  all  trace  of  sleep. 

"What?"  I  asked,  carelessly. 

"Now  I  know." 

"Know  what?" 

"Why  you  wouldn't  make  Madelaine 
tall  and  willowy." 

"Barbara,"  said  I,  "don't  you  want  to 
get  two  or  three  sprays  of  bridal  wreath 
for  that  table  there?" 

While  she  was  gone  Bert  and  Leslie 
came  down  the  banister.  One  astir  is  apt 
to  be  all  astir  in  the  morning.  Let  me 
leave  no  tmkind  impression  of  those  boys. 
We  had  settled  that  score  of  Barbara's — 
painlessly,  on  the  whole — the  night  before. 
They  had  bowed  down  himibly  before  her 
and  had  risen  the  better  men  for  it.  This 
morning  they  looked  the  world  frankly  in 
the  eyes. 

I  gazed  meditatively  upon  them,  care- 
251 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

ful,  however,  to  conceal  the  admiration 
I  confess  I  felt.  In  the  first  place,  they 
were  mine — but  that,  let  me  say  it  honest- 
ly, had  nothing  to  do  with  their  good  looks, 
which  are  of  Kate,  nor  with  that  taking 
way  of  theirs,  which  is  of  Kate  also,  and 
which,  as  I  told  myself  this  morning,  is 
so  irresistible  that  the  devil  himself  must 
melt  before  it  and  be  moved  to  leave  them 
to  the  end  the  angels  that  they  are — at 
heart.  It  may  be  that  they  coddle  their 
father,  just  a  bit,  now  and  again,  but  he 
thrives  upon  it,  for  it  is  wonderful  how 
the  flower  of  a  man's  youth  —  ay,  or 
woman's — ^will  bloom  perennially  tended 
by  little  hands. 

Here,  then,  are  two  somethings  to  smile 
at,  even  when  I  am  sad,  even  when  I  am 
fretted,  say,  after  all  my  philosophy,  by 
the  pinching  way  the  world  has  with  a 
man's  pocket-book — for,  remember,  pony- 
time  is  drawing  nigh  again.  This  I  know 
— as  a  father,  mind,  for  I  never  guessed  it 
as  a  younger  boy ;  fate  has  no  lash  in  store 
252 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

for  me  so  stinging  that  the  sight  of  those 
two  yoting  sons  of  mine,  sotmd  of  their 
voices,  glance  of  their  eyes,  or  touch  of 
their  stm-browned  hands  cannot  make  me 
grin — and  bear. 

What  they  saw  this  morning  was  only 
an  elderly  sort  of  fellow  gazing  upon  them 
in  a  calm  (in  dear  old  Pickwick  it  would 
have  been  a  benevolent)  sort  of  way  from 
the  garden  bench,  while  they  ran  foot-races 
to  his  knees. 

"Well,"  said  I,  as  we  sat  at  breakfast, 
"  she  has  her  letter." 

It  sounds  but  simple,  and  I  said  it 
casually  with  my  eyes  on  my  porridge- 
bowl,  but,  I  give  you  my  word  for  it, 
I  felt  relieved  that  my  mind  was  free 
again. 

"Who's  'she,'  father?" 

"There's  only  one,  my  boy." 

"Mother?" 

"Who  else  would  it  be?" 

"What  letter,  father?" 

"  The  one  I  mailed  last  night  at  six." 
''  253 


THE   FLOWER  OF    YOUTH 

"  Father,"  cried  Bert,  "  if  we  could  only 
surprise  her!" 
"Surprise  her?" 
"Yes — go  to  Pineville — all  of  us!" 

"  But  how  about  trains  ?  Do  they  run," 
I  asked,  "on  Saturday  afternoons?" 

"Why,  Uncle  Jerry,"  said  my  niece, 
"you  know  they  do.  Else  why  were  you 
looking  at  the  time-table  while  I  went  for 
the  flowers?" 

'•  Do  all  time-tables — do  all  roads  lead 
to  Pineville,  Barbara  Burton?" 

"No,  but  that  one  did.  It  had  a  blue 
cross  upon  it." 

"And  all  blue-cross  trains,  I  suppose. 
Mistress  Barbara,  nm  to  Pineville?" 

"  Uncle  Jerry,  you  were  planning  to  run 
away!" 

"To  spend  Sunday,  father!"  cried  my 
elder  son. 

"Father,  take  me!"  cried  my  yoimger. 

"Me,  too,  father!" 

"Oh,  Uncle  Jerry!" 

And  they  doubted  every  protesting  word 
254 


THE    FLOWER    OP    YOUTH 

I  said.  They  would  not  trust  me  to  go 
alone  for  my  hat,  but  peered  suspiciously 
for  some  sign,  outward  and  visible,  of  a 
scheme  within.  They  looked  for  an  old- 
fashioned  black  valise  which  has  stood  for 
years  in  the  garret  dust.  Kate,  they 
knew,  had  the  only  good  bag  the  house 
affords.  They  followed  me  down  the  walk 
to  the  gate.  They  watched  me  pass  thence 
to  the  comer,  and,  as  I  turned  it,  waved 
good-bye  to  me  with  a  wistfulness  that 
seemed*  to  say,  "Till  Monday." 

"By  George!"  said  I,  "I've  a  good 
mind — " 

And  the  more  I  thought  of  it  the  more 
it  seemed  to  me  a  goodly  sort  of  picture: 
two  boys,  illimiined  —  Barbara  getting 
them  into  their  blue -and -white -striped 
waists  and  tying  their  ties  for  them— ar- 
raying herself  in  a  certain  fetching  little 
rosebud  kind  of  Sunday  gown,  while  I 
stand  by  in  a  clean  collar  with  a  watch 
open  in  my  hand ! 

"By  George!"  said  I. 
255 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

And  on  the  cars ! — telegraph-poles  a-pop- 
ping  by  us  and  May  fields  with  their  dan- 
delions and  sheep — two  boys  wiggling  on 
one  seat,  Barbara  and  I  sedate  but  cheer- 
ful on  the  other  opposite — to  say  nothing 
of  the  tin  cup  shining  at  the  aisle's  far 
end,  a  beacon  beckoning  to  happy  little 
travelling  boys. 

"George!"  said  I,  again. 

Brother  George,  I  meant —  Brother 
George  at  the  Pineville  station,  summoned 
by  telegram — his  three-seat  waiting  there 
by  the  yellow  'bus — and  Kate,  Kate,  dear 
old  girl,  on  the  platform,  smothered  in  boys ! 

"Look  out  where  you're  going,  can't 
you!" 

It  was  a  nasty  voice,  hot-breathed  and 
growling  in  my  very  ear,  like  a  bull-dog's. 
I  begged  the  fellow's  pardon — begged  it 
twice,  but  he  only  scowled  at  me.  Talk 
of  courtesy!  I  heard  him  damning — his 
foot,  I  think  it  was,  or  me,  I'm  not  quite 
sure — as  I  turned  up  the  office  steps. 

Well,  it  all  came  about  this  very  even- 
256 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

ing  as  I  had  seen:  two  little  sons,  illu- 
mined— their  clean  waists,  blue  and  white, 
and  their  ties  tied  for  them  —  Barbara 
in  her  rosebud  gown,  and  I  in  a  clean 
collar — two  wiggling  sons,  as  I  have  said 
— Barbara  cheerful,  and  I,  and  Kate! — 
Kate  at  the  journey's  end  smothered  in 
boys! — but  not  (oh,  bless  you,  no!)  not 
in  Pineville.  It  was  on  our  own  little 
gray-blue  porch  with  the  sun  just  going 
down  and  the  moon  rising. 

"Kate!"  I  cried. 

"Jerry,  darling!" 

"Dear  heart,"  said  I,  "why,  how  did 
you  happen — I  thought — ^why  you  said 
you  would  stay  a  month!" 

"  I  know,  but  you  wrote — '* 

"Yes,  but  I  didn't  mean  —  I  didn't 
dream  I  would  frighten  you." 

"Frighten  me!" 

"Yes — about  Leslie." 

"Leslie!" 

"Why,  didn't  you  get  it — my  letter? 
I  mailed  it  last  night  at  six." 
257 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Letter!     Leslie!" 

"Oh,  it's  nothing,"  I  cried.  "He  got 
overheated,  that's  all,  and  I — " 

"But,  Jerry,  he's  all  right  now?" 

"Oh  yes.  But  I  happened  to  men- 
tion—" 

"Why,  his  head  is  cool." 

"Cool  as  January,  Of  course.  I  was 
foolish  enough  to  put  it  down  in  the  letter 
I  wrote  last  night,  and  I  thought — ^was 
afraid  it  had  scared  you  home.  But  you 
haven't  told  us." 

"Oh,  I  just  thought  I  would  come." 

"But  why?" 

"  You  didn't  expect  me  to  stay  a  month, 
did  you?" 

"  I  wondered  if  you  could,  you  seemed 
so  lonely." 

"Lonely!  Why,  Jerry  Down,  it  was 
you  who  were  lonely." 

"I!" 

"You!  Your  letters  were  the  moum- 
fulest  things  I  ever  saw.  That's  why  I 
came." 

258 


THE    FLOWER    OP   YOUTH 

"My  letters  mournful!" 

"As  the  grave,  Jerry." 

"Why — why,  I  never  once  said  I  was 
lonely.    It  was  you  who — " 

"You  didn't  say  so,  that  is  true,  but, 
Jerry,  Jerry,  I  could  tell  by  the  very  blanks 
between  the  lines  that  you  never  could 
stand  it  a  month.  And  you  kept  inferring 
that  /  was  lonely,  and  how  could  you 
think  that  tmless — " 

"How  could  I  think  that!  How  could 
I  help  thinking  that,  Kate  Down  ?  Of  all 
the  homesickest  letters  I  ever  read!" 

"Mine!" 

"Yours." 

"Why,  I  never  once — " 

"I  can  prove  it  by  Barbara.  She  no- 
ticed it,  too." 

"And  you  thought  I  was  lonely!"  said 
my  wife. 

"And  you  thought  /  was  lonely!"  I  re- 
plied. 

We  looked  at  each  other. 

"Now  I  know!"  cried  Bert. 
259 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"What?"  we  asked. 

"Why  father  was  looking  at  the  time- 
table this  morning." 

"And  why  he  got  up  so  early  and  put 
the  flowers  aroimd,"  said  Barbara,  slyly. 

My  wife  looked  at  me. 

"Tut!"  said  I.  "The  merest  coinci- 
dence." 

"Why,  how,"  said  my  wife,  slowly — 
"how  did  you  know  I  was  coming?" 

"  I  didn't.     I  didn't  know  anything." 

"But  what  made  you  think  I  might 
come,  then?" 

"  I  never  said  that  I  thought  you  might 
come." 

"Then  why  did  you  fix  the  flowers?" 
Bert  asked. 

"And  look  at  the  time-table?"  Barbara 
inquired. 

"  Oh,  I  just  glanced  at  it,"  said  I — "  cas- 
ually. It  was  on  the  table,  I  suppose,  as 
I  passed,  so  I — " 

"  It  was  nothing  of  the  kind,"  my  niece 
declared.  "It  was  in  the  secretary,  and 
260 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

you  went  and  got  it  yourself — for  I  saw 
you." 

"Did  I?"  I  inquired. 

My  wife's  cheek  pressed  Leslie's  brow 
as  he  sat  snuggled  in  her  lap.  Bert  hung 
upon  her  chair.  Her  eyes  were  spark- 
ling. 

"His  head  is  cool,"  she  said — ^but  slyly, 
it  seemed  to  me. 

"Oh,  yes — cool  now,"  said  I,  "but  you 
ought  to  have  felt  it  yesterday — eh,  Bar- 
bara?" 

"It  was  hot,"  my  niece  assented,  "but 
Uncle  Jerry  decided  it  was  only  his  playing 
too  hard." 

' '  What  did  you  say  in  that  letter,  Jerry  ?' ' 
asked  my  wife. 

"Why,  I  merely  mentioned  the  inci- 
dent," I  explained. 

"  But  as  long  as  you  thought  it  so  triv- 
ial, dearest,"  she  reproved  me,  beaming 
upon  me,  "  I  should  think  you  would  have 
been  afraid  even  to  mention  it  for  fear 
of — frightening  me  home,  you  know." 
261    ' 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"But  you  wanted  to  come,"  I  retorted. 
"Jerry!" 

"You  were  just  waiting  for  an  excuse," 
I  said. 

"Why,  Jerry  Down!" 

"Uncle!" 

"Father!" 

I  was  one  against  three. 

After  the  children  had  gone  to  bed  we 
were  sitting  together  in  the  garden.  It 
was  just  such  an  evening  as  they  put  in 
love-stories,  moon-white  and  tranquil  and 
scented  with  spring. 

"  Now,"  said  I,  "  we  begin  to  live  again." 

"I  couldn't  stay,"  she  told  me.  "It  is 
so  lovely  here.  Were  the  boys,"  she  ask- 
ed— "Just  smell  the  lilacs,  Jerry! — ^were 
the  boys  good  while  I  was  gone?". 

"Angels,"  I  told  her.  Then  she  was 
silent  awhile,  laying  her  cheek  against 
my  hand. 

"Now  if  Jamie  could  only  be  here, 
too,"  she  said. 

262 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

"Still  thinking,  Katie?" 

"Not  a  day  passes — " 

"I  know,  dear  one." 

Then  as  we  sat  there  talking,  with  that 
little  gray -blue  house  of  ours  bathed 
in  a  fairy  gloaming,  we  saw,  through 
the  windows  in  the  vines,  the  lamplight 
golden  on  the  lilacs  I  had  plucked  that 
mom. 

"You  never  noticed." 

"Yes,  when  I  first  came  in." 

It  was  the  Older  Woman's  face  she  turn- 
ed to  me,  lovely  with  memories  where  the 
dreams  had  been. 

The  clock  struck  midnight,  there  was 
so  much  to  say.  Up-stairs  by  the  very 
window  where  the  pear-tree  knocks  I 
stood  and  watched  her  as  she  tucked  them 
in. 

"Dear  little  sons,"  she  whispered — then 
turned  in  the  moonlight  and  took  my 
rough  cheeks  softly  in  her  hands : 

"My  biggest  boy — oh,  if  they'll  only  be 
like  you!"  she  said. 

263 


THE    FLOWER    OF    YOUTH 

Brook,  did  I  call  it  ?  It  is  a  garden  hid- 
den behind  a  hedge.  Trudging  the  high- 
way you  see  no  flowers  blooming  —  but 
when  the  wind  is  kind  a  perfume  comes 
to  you  from  somewhere  near. 


THE   END 


R<SEU 


SISBK-----^5Apv^ 


A     000  778  764 


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